Although the year-over-year growth has slowed down, the mobile market has experienced a continued lift during the pandemic. In Q3 2021, consumers worldwide spent $33.6bn on mobile apps, 15% more than in the same period a year ago, and Android users generated the majority of that value.
According to data presented by Mejores Apuestas, Google Play revenue jumped by 13% YoY to $21.5bn in the third quarter of the year, almost double the total consumer spending in AppStore in this period.
Revenues Rise while Downloads Fall
As one of the two largest distribution channels for mobile apps, Google Play has witnessed a surge in revenue and first-time installs over the years, especially after the COVID-19 hit.
According to SensorTower data, in Q3 2019, Android users spent $14.5bn on apps, up from $11.6bn in the same period a year ago. However, last year witnessed even more impressive growth, with users worldwide spending more time and money on mobile apps amid the lockdowns. Between July and September 2020, total consumer spending in the Google Play store jumped to $19bn, showing a fantastic 31% YoY increase.
Although 2021 witnessed a slowdown in YoY growth, revenues still climbed to all-time highs. Statistics show that between the first and third quarter of the year, overall consumer spending on in-app purchases, premium apps, and subscriptions in the Google Play store jumped by $1.1bn and hit $21.5bn globally. In comparison, iOS users spent $12.1bn in Q3 2021, up from $11.4bn in the first quarter of the year.
However, statistics show that downloads dropped around 2% across both stores to 35.7 billion, down from 36.4 billion in Q3 2020. Although Google’s marketplace saw growth in app adoption in the first half of the year, due to the prevalent use of Android devices in areas still drastically affected by COVID-19, that wasn’t the case in the third quarter of the year.
Between July and September, first-time installs in the Google Play store dropped by 2.1% YoY to 27.6 billion. At the same time, Apple’s marketplace saw a decline of 1.2% and a total of 8.1 billion downloads in this period.
Over 190,000 Apps Removed from Google Play Store YTD
The rise in Android users’ spending on in-app purchases, premium apps and subscriptions is even more impressive considering the number of apps removed from the Google Play Store since the beginning of the year.
To ensure the quality and trustworthiness of the apps within its marketplace, Google has released a series of policies to regulate app developers. As a result, thousands of low-quality and policy-violating apps have been removed by Google Play periodically.
Then in April, Google introduced a set of new policies and guidelines on how to present Android apps in the Play Store and announced removing all apps with misleading names and graphics.
The Statista and AppBrain data showed that over 190,000 apps had been removed from Google’s marketplace year-to-date, with the total number of available apps falling from 2.97 million to 2.78 million. Most of them were regular apps, and only 12,300 were low-quality apps.
