The iOS app store continues to lead in the worldwide market for the most revenue generated from premium apps and in-app purchases, according to a new report by Sensor Tower.
They suggest that Apple generated almost twice as much revenue as the Google Play Store in the first part of 2019, despite Android holding a significantly larger market share with billions of users around the world – and more apps on its Play Store, too.
The App Store (iOS only) generated $25.5 billion in worldwide revenue in the six-month period ending in June, a figure that’s up more than 13% from the $22.6 billion generated in Q1-2 in 2018.
Although “first time installs” decreased to 14.8 billion, App Store downloads rose in the second 2019 quarter by more than 3% on 2018.
Whilst Apple saw a downward spiral in “first time installs”, perhaps because of its problems in China, the company’s $25.5 billion App Store revenue still trumped Google’s with its Play Store, which generated $14.2 billion over the same period.
However, the Play Store’s gross revenue jumped more than 19.6% year-over-year.
What’s particularly interesting to note is that the Google Play Store saw 2.8 times the install volume of Apple’s App Store, but Apple generated more than 1.8 times the revenue.
It’s argued that Apple’s user base, its content quality, and its pricing strategy and integration with Apple Pay were the primary reasons why it beat Google in app store revenue.
