Consumer spending on mobile apps to hit $133 billion in 2021

Global consumer spending on mobile apps is projected to hit around $133 billion across Google Play and the App Store, up 19.7% YoY from $111.1 billion in 2020, according to Sensor Tower. 

Global consumer spending was $32 billion in Q1, $34 billion in Q2, and $33.6 billion in Q3.

Consumer spending worldwide on the App Store is expected to reach $85.1 billion in 2021, an increase of 17.7% year-over-year from $72.3 billion in 2020. On Google Play, on the other hand, it is projected to reach $47.9 billion at the end of this year, up 23.5% from $38.8 billion in 2020. 

ByteDance’s popular short video app TikTok, which is expected to generate $2.3 billion in revenue by the end of this year, will maintain its #1 ranking as the most revenue-generating non-game app in both the App Store and Google Play. It is also the most downloaded app on the App Store for 2021, with 745.9 million installs across both app stores. 

Consumer spending on mobile games in 2021

Global consumer spending on mobile games is expected to reach $89.6 billion across the App Store and Google Play, up 12.6% year-over-year from $79.6 billion in 2020. It also represents 67.4% of all in-app spending in 2021, down 6.7% from 74.1 percent in 2019. Despite this, mobile games still account for the majority of spend in both markets, representing 61.5% of revenue for iOS and 78% of revenue for Google Play.

On the App Store, mobile gamers worldwide are expected to spend $52.3 billion by the end of 2021, up 9.9 percent year-over-year from $47.6 billion in 2020. Tencent’s Honor of Kings is the highest grossing iOS game, generating $2.9 billion on that platform, an increase of 16% year-on-year from $2.5 billion. 

Games on Google Play will see $37.3 billion in global consumer spending in 2021, up 16.6% year-over-year from $32 billion in 2020. The highest grossing title on Google’s platform is once again Coin Master from Moon Active, which saw its revenue increase 13% year-over-year to nearly $912 million from 2020’s total of $809.8 million on that app store.