Global consumer spending in mobile apps reached a record $111B in 2020, up 30.2% YoY, of which $72.3B was spent on the App Store and $38.6B on the Play Store
2020 was a record-setting year for both mobile games and non-game apps, and consumer spending on Apple's App Store and Google Play soared …
Context & Ripple Effects
Sensor Tower's full-year tally caps a run of record quarters: Q3 2020 alone saw more than $29B in global app revenue, and Christmas Day spending hit $407.6M across both stores. The firm's $111B figure lands close to App Annie's independent estimate of $112B for the year, which also pegged roughly 65 cents of every dollar going to iOS.
What makes the 30.2% jump notable is its composition: top non-game subscription apps grew 34% to $13B in 2020, with Play Store subscription spending up 42% — faster than the headline number. Four years on, the same trackers show growth cooling to 15.7% in 2024 even as downloads shrink, which reframes this 2020 spike as the peak of an install-and-spend boom.
First-order effects
- Apple and Google each booked their largest-ever commission base in a single year — $72.3B of consumer spend flowing through the App Store versus $38.6B through Google Play, a near 2:1 split that reinforces Apple's monetization lead.
Second-order effects
- Developers reading the subscription data shift roadmaps toward recurring revenue: Play Store subscription spending growing 42% signals Android's gap is closing at the high-monetization end, pressuring both stores' commission economics and any developer pushback over the 30% cut.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — 30% growth in 2020 decelerating to 15.7% by 2024 while downloads turn negative — the app economy structurally shifts from acquiring new users to extracting more revenue per active device, making store commission rates and alternative payment channels the central battleground between platforms and developers.
The trend: Mobile app spending is maturing from a download-driven boom into a per-user monetization game, with store commissions and subscription models deciding who captures the value.