Sensor Tower report on the download and monetization of mobile applications in 2021 – $133 billion in revenue

EMGblog.com: Without a doubt, 2020 is an exceptional year for the market It was mobile applications and games; Due to the spread of the Corona virus, the tendency of people to use mobile applications and games was accompanied by a tremendous jump, so that according to the report of Sensor Tower, the amount of user spending for applications and games in that year with a significant growth of more than 30% to 111.1 reached billion dollars. Apparently, with the subsidence of the corona fever in some parts of the world, this market has also returned to normal. According to a recent report by Sensor Tower Published, users have spent more than 133 billion dollars on mobile applications in 2021, which has been accompanied by 19.7% growth compared to 2020.

Apple wins. In general, the ratio of expenses spent on these two platforms is almost the same as in 2020, and in this way, the revenue of the App Store will be approximately 1.8 times that of Google Play.

Review of non-gaming applications

Monetization

including the total revenue earned from both the App Store and On Google Play in 2021, the TikTok app (known as Douyin to iOS users in China) still holds the title of the top-grossing non-game app. Data from Sensor Tower shows that from the beginning of this year to the end of November, the TikTok application (a product of the Chinese company ByteDance) earned about 2 billion dollars, which is a 67% increase compared to the income of this application in the same period last year. According to estimates, the revenue of this application in the whole year 2021 will amount to 2.3 billion dollars. Assuming the accuracy of this prediction, Tik Tok’s total revenue (from the beginning of its activity until the end of 2021) will reach a stunning figure of 3.8 billion dollars.

If we want Apple and Let’s examine Google separately, Tik Tok is still at the top of non-game revenue-generating applications in the App Store. Of course, Tik Tok is not better than the fourth place in the table of the most profitable Google Play applications, because in this store, Piccoma, Google One and Disney + applications are the first to third places of income generation. According to Sensor Tower, Google One’s app revenue will reach $1 billion by the end of 2021, with annual growth of 123% (compared to $448.5 million in 2020).

Number of initial installs

The number of times an app is installed on devices for the first time is a quantity that has not changed much in 2021 compared to the previous year. has reached 143.6 billion times (on both Google Play and App Store platforms) with a growth of 0.5%. The majority of first-time installs – with 111.3 billion times – are attributed to Google Play, which is up 2.6% year-over-year. On the other hand, it is estimated that the number of first installs of iOS applications in the whole of 2021 will decrease by 6.1% to 32.3 billion times.

The recent Sensor Tower report shows that during 2021, Tik Tok application was installed on users’ devices 745.9 million times through App Store and Google Play and took the title of the most downloaded App Store application in 2021 (this application in terms of the number of downloads in Google Play has taken the third place). It goes without saying that the number of TikTok downloads in 2020 reached a staggering 980.7 million times, which shows how popular the app (even with the ban in India) is among users. Needless to say, the title of the most downloaded Google Play app in 2021 goes to Facebook with 500.9 million installs.

Gaming apps review

Monetization

Revenue from game apps on both Google Play and the App Store in 2021 – with 12.6% growth over the same period last year – It amounts to 89.6 billion dollars. Despite the continued annual growth of this category of applications, their share of the total cost spent by users has decreased. In 2019, something equivalent to 74.1% of the total expenses spent on applications was allocated to mobile games. In 2020, the share of mobile games from the total revenue of applications decreased to 71.7%. Now, this amount is expected to reach 67.4% in 2021. This indicates the continuous growth of non-gaming applications in areas such as “Entertainment” which have been met with good luck as a result of the spread of Corona.

With all these interpretations, the majority of spending on apps is still spent on games. According to the Sensor Tower report, currently about 61.5% of App Store revenue and 78% of Google Play revenue comes from games.

Sensor Tower estimates indicate that by the end of this year, mobile gamers will spend about 52.3 billion dollars through the App Store for mobile games, which is a 9.9% increase compared to the same period last year. had. Honor of Kings (product of Chinese company Tencent) has the highest revenue among App Store games. The income from this game has reached 2.9 billion dollars this year with an annual growth of 16%. It is interesting to know that the total revenue of this game (from the beginning of its activity until now) exceeded 10 billion dollars this year.

By the end of 2021, Gamer spending on mobile games on Google Play will reach $37.3 billion in 2020, a 16.6% increase over 2020. Unlike iOS, Android gamers apparently don’t have much interest in Honor of Kings, as the game doesn’t even appear in the top 10 Google Play games (by revenue). It should be noted that, over the past year, the highest revenue among Google Play games belonged to Coin Master (a product of Moon Active Company). The income of this game in 2021 is reported to be around 912 million dollars, which is a 13% increase compared to the income of the previous year (i.e. 809.8 million dollars).

Number of initial installs

In 2021, users of the App Store and Google Play installed mobile games on their devices for the first time 55.3 billion times. Compared to last year, it has decreased by 1.6%. Of course, this drop is normal, because in 2020 and with the widespread spread of the Corona virus, we were suddenly faced with a huge volume of game installations for the first time on phones, which according to Sensor Tower data was reported as high as 56.2 billion times.

Approximately 84% of the total installations in 2021 (i.e. 46.7 billion installs) took place through Google Play, which is 1.3% compared to last year. It has increased. The most popular Android game this year is Garena Free Fire. The estimates of Sensor Tower experts show that the amount of downloads of this game will reach 218.8 million times by the end of 2021, which is, of course, 14% less than the same period last year.

The App Store’s share of game downloads this year was reported to be 8.6 billion times, which is a 14.9% drop compared to the previous year. PUBG Mobile (known as Game for Peace among Chinese iOS users) is the most popular iOS game in 2021, and is expected to reach 47.5 million downloads by the end of the year. Although this volume of downloads has decreased by 18.5% compared to 58.3 million times last year.