What you need to know

The mobile apps market is continuing to have strong growth, due to consumers downloading apps regularly and spending more money. Revenue, particularly from paid apps, has risen significantly compared to the same point in 2018.

Games continue to be the most profitable category, with Coin Master generating the most revenue out of all apps on the Google Play Store in the first half of 2019. Meanwhile, Netflix generated the most revenue during this period on the App Store, following on from the same result in 2018.

Mintel’s consumer research shows that social media and messaging continue to be the dominant two categories of apps, although video and music streaming are popular with the younger generations. With 5G already available in limited locations, the new technology is likely to increase the importance of video streaming apps. Consumers will not watch content that is continuously stopping and buffering – as can often be the case with previous network connections – instead they will have a seamless experience that could rival or better what they get with fixed broadband. The main barriers to this trend though are the higher prices of 5G handsets and contracts and the currently limited coverage.

Free apps with in-app purchases continue to generate the vast majority of revenue from apps, and therefore it is vital that developers get their advertising experience correct. Almost two thirds of app users have stopped using an app due to an intrusive ad experience. The solution appears to be to offer more ad-based incentives, so consumers get rewarded for watching an ad. These could be bonuses such as more lives in a game or to unlock an item. Also, offering consumers the choice of which ad they want to view is likely to give a less frustrating or inconvenient experience for them.

Products covered in this Report

This Report covers apps designed to run on mobile devices (smartphones, tablets and smartwatches). Mobile apps are typically compatible with iOS, Android or Windows 10 Mobile. Market size discussion focuses on revenue estimates for Apple’s App Store and Google Play, which sells apps for smartphones, tablets and smartwatches. Whilst consumer research includes data for Windows and other operating systems, low sample size mean some analyses focus on only Android and iOS systems.

Some data in this Report is supplied by app analytics firm App Annie. All App Annie data is identified as such when quoted. For more information from App Annie please email contact@appannie.com or visit its website, www.appannie.com.

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