iOS App Store Spending Grew 20% YoY to $18 Billion in Q3 2020

Mobile app spending among consumers in the third quarter of 2020 saw a 20 percent year-on-year increase as well as a surge in time spent in apps, according to a new report from App Annie (via TechCrunch).

Smartphone and tablet users downloaded 33 billion new apps globally and spent a record $28 billion in apps, over a period in which consumers' lives were heavily impacted by lockdowns and social distancing measures in response to the ongoing global health crisis.

Users also spent over 180 billion collective hours using apps every month over July, August and September, which is a 25 percent increase year-over-year.

Downloads from the Google Play Store increased 10 percent year-on-year and accounted for 25 billion of the total 33 billion new downloads across the quarter. Meanwhile, iOS accounted for nearly 9 billion downloads, an increase of 20 percent year-on-year. Non-gaming apps on Google Play accounted for 55 percent of those downloads, while on iOS it accounted for 70 percent of downloads.

The top two markets by downloads on iOS was the U.S. and China, with India and South Korea also seeing significant growth. Games, Photo and Video, and Entertainment were the top download categories for five straight quarters and the top categories by consumer spend.

On iOS, app spending grew 20 percent year-on-year to $18 billion, while Google Play saw a 35 percent year-on-year increase to over $10 billion. An increase in subscriptions also saw non-gaming apps account for 35 percent of that spend on iOS and 20 percent on Google Play. The U.S. and Japan were the top markets for consumer app spending across both stores.

In terms of monthly active users, Facebook took the No. 1 through No. 4 positions for Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram, respectively. The next most used apps were Amazon, Twitter, Netflix, Spotify, TikTok and then Telegram. Meanwhile highest consumer spend was in Tinder, followed by TikTok, YouTube, and Disney+.

The App Annie report largely mirrors a Sensor Tower report released earlier this month that found Apple's App Store earned twice as much as the Google Play Store over the third quarter.