Mobile app spending exceeds $100 Billion Last Year

Mobile App Spending - Man with Phone

New research reveals that mobile consumers were big spenders in mobile marketplaces in 2018.

Mobile analytics firm App Annie has found that consumer mobile app spending reached a milestone in 2018. Mobile consumers spent more than $100 billion downloading software and paying for services from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store last year.

This is a 75% increase from two years ago.

The $100 billion mobile app spending milestone, which also included in-app purchases and in-app subscriptions, is reportedly a 75% increase from 2016.

What’s more App Annie’s research also learned that in 2018, mobile users spent approximately three hours every day interacting in some way with a mobile app. Danielle Levitas, App Annie executive vice president of market insights, said this is an increase from two-and-a-half hours during 2017.

Levitas stated that the increase in time spent using apps is due to more and more mobile apps offering better convenience and value to users. Examples of such apps include financial apps, which allow users to easily and quickly check their bank accounts on their smartphones, and entertainment apps like YouTube.

Mobile app spending is increasing as apps become “critical” platforms.

Levitas explained that many major companies are no longer experimenting with smartphone apps as they did two years ago, now they are creating compelling mobile apps.

“It’s becoming a critical platform,” Levitas said about mobile apps, reported Fortune. “We’re using these devices and the apps on them even more [than previous years].”

Netflix was the top video streaming app in almost every country by consumer spending. However, the report from App Annie did not provide a dollar figure. That being said, according to a previous estimate from analytics firm Sensor tower, Netflix made approximately $790.2 million in sales via Apple’s App Store last year throughout the 12-month period, which ended November 30. This makes Netflix the world’s highest grossing iOS app.

Facebook remains the top app in regard to monthly active U.S. users. That being said as in the case of Netflix, App Annie did not cite a specific number.

Although the social media giant remained at the top for having the most monthly active users in the U.S., the WhatsApp Messaging app trumped Facebook in terms of global monthly active users in September 2018.

Levitas thinks that WhatsApp’s increasing popularity is due to it being a simple messaging service that lets people Mobile App Spending - Man with Phonesend messages worldwide without users having to deal with the frustration of cellular contracts.

It will be interesting to see if the trend of increased mobile app spending will continue this year.

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