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Key mobile app statistics for 2025:
app usage, revenue & success factors
August 7, 2025
Key takeaways for 2025
$1+
tn
expected mobile app market share by 2034
Precedence Research
136
bn
apps downloaded in 2024, -1% YoY
Sensor Tower
40
bn
total app consumer spending in Q1 2025
Statista
35%
of mobile time spent on social media apps in 2024
Statista
3.5 h
average time in apps spent per user
Sensor Tower
112%
AI chatbot apps YoY growth, the largest among all categories
Sensor Tower
Current mobile application market state
Market growth drivers
| As of 2025, there are over 8.66 billion mobile subscriptions globally, and the number is projected to exceed 9.4 billion by 2030 | |
|---|---|
| In May 2025, 63% of consumers globally and 51% in North America used mobile devices to access the internet | |
| 5G networks carried 35% of mobile data traffic in 2024 and are expected to cover 80% of the total mobile data traffic by 2030 |
Mobile app market details
| The global mobile application market size was estimated to reach over $289 billion in 2025. Driven by the rising popularity of app-based services and the increasing adoption of smartphones, the market is expected to exceed $1 trillion by 2034 at a growth rate of 21.55% | |
|---|---|
| In 2024, the Asia Pacific region held the largest share of 33% in the global market of mobile applications, followed by North America (30%) and Europe (27%) | |
| In terms of generating revenue from in-app purchases and subscriptions, the United States showed the strongest growth compared to other countries globally with $52 billion in consumer spend | |
| In the first quarter of 2025, the Android operating system maintained its leading position globally, holding a market share of over 71%, while Apple's iOS accounted for approximately 27.65% of smartphones used worldwide |
Market concentration
Concentrated
Fragmented
Mobile application market
Low
High
Market growth stage
Decelerating
Accelerating
Pace of market growth
Market characteristics. Industry competition
Low
High
Degree of innovation
Product/ solution launches
Impact of regulations
Solution substitutes
End-user concentration
Scheme title: Mobile application market industry dynamics
Data source: Grand View Research
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Mobile app usage statistics
| Most consumers (55%) prefer mobile apps as their primary channel for interacting with brands, doing work, and performing transactions, while 22% use both the mobile and web channels | |
|---|---|
| In 2024, the total mobile app downloads across the Google Play and App Store marketplaces amounted to 136 billion, which represents a 1% decline compared to the previous year | |
| In an average week, 65.6% of consumers use between 3 and 10 apps daily | |
| In 2024, users spent an average of 3.5 hours per day on mobile apps, representing a 2.9% year-over-year growth | |
| Top countries with the most hours spent on mobile apps in 2024 are India (1.126 tn hours), Indonesia (355.1 bn hours), and the United States (325.1 bn hours) | |
| On average, active users have from less than 10 up to 45 app sessions within a month | |
| 51% of mobile phone users check their apps between 1 to 10 times daily, and another 25% of users open their apps 11 to 20 times per day | |
| In general, about 79% of app downloads and consumer spending came from outside of the country where the app was developed. Only users in China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States preferred mainly apps from domestic publishers | |
| In 2024, the highest app download rates were recorded during the three months of autumn both in Google Play (over 10 billion) and App Store (over 4 billion) | |
| Among the top reasons for deleting mobile apps, customers name too many in-app ads (30%), the app failing to meet expectations (25%), unclear, broken, or slow experiences (19%), excessive notifications or in-app messages (18%), and replacement with another app (18%) | |
| On average, over 95% of users churn after 30 days and less than 5% out of those 5% that stay will subscribe |
Scheme title: Top mobile markets
Data source: Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile 2025 report
Scheme title: App users’ gender breakdown among selected categories, US Q4 2024
Data source: Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile 2025 report
Scheme title: App users’ age group breakdown among selected categories, US Q4 2024
Data source: Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile 2025 report
Google Play vs App Store
The two app marketplaces targeting the most popular mobile operating systems demonstrated no significant growth both in new app publications or download statistics over the past year. This can indicate that the mobile app market has become saturated, with users becoming more selective in their app installations and prioritizing quality over quantity.
Google Play App Store
Scheme title: Google Play and App Store: downloads and revenue share, 2024
Data source: ASO Mobile’s Annual Report on the mobile app market 2024
Google Play
The minimum requirements for app quality adopted by Google in 2024 negatively affected the number of applications now available in Google Play, while the marketplace’s revenue continues to grow.
| As of June 2025, there are 1.5 million Android apps in the Google Play Store, and 96.5% of them are free apps. This is a significant decline compared to early 2024, when 2.4 million apps were available | |
|---|---|
| By taking comprehensive measures, including implementing AI-powered threat detection and applying stronger privacy policies, Google rejected the publication of 2.36 million policy-violating apps on Google Play and banned over 158,000 developer accounts that tried to publish harmful apps | |
| Only about 46 thousand new apps were launched on Google Play in April 2025 | |
| In 2024, the total number of app downloads in Google Play dropped by 3.2% down to 107.2 billion | |
| India (+10.76%), Brazil (+15.73%), and the United States (+15.83%) accounted for the highest number of app downloads in 2024, while top countries for game downloads were India (+0.8%), Brazil (+1.01%), and the Russian Federation (+3.07%) | |
| In the second quarter of 2024 alone, Google Play’s gross revenue from apps amounted to around $11.2 billion globally | |
| A revenue increase of 7.3% was recorded for Google Play in 2024 | |
| In 2024, the highest revenue on Google Play came from the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom for applications and the United States, Japan, and South Korea for games |
App Store
Although demonstrating lower app download rates than Google Play, Apple’s App Store consistently generates more revenue, largely due to the tendency of iOS users to spend more on apps.
| By marketplace, the App Store had the highest market share of 63% in 2024 | |
|---|---|
| In 2024, the total number of app downloads in the App Store dropped slightly by 0.4% down to 41.3 billion | |
| In 2024, China had the most iOS app downloads (6.46 billion, +8%), followed by the United States (+7.72%). As for gaming apps, top downloads were recorded in the United States (+1.76%), China (-8.18%), and Japan (-1.62%) | |
| The consumer spend on in-app purchases on the App Store exceeded $9 billion in May 2025 alone, representing a 13% increase compared to the same period of the previous year | |
| In 2024, the countries that generated the highest revenue from in-app purchases on the App Store were the United States ($14.35 billion), China ($9.4 billion), and Japan (around $3.4 billion), accounting for 76.97% of the App Store’s total revenue | |
| China and the United States were the leading countries with top downloads both for applications and games in 2024 | |
| On the App Store, over 23% of app subscribers don’t renew their subscriptions due to billing errors despite Apple’s efforts to reduce involuntary churn |
Trends across mobile app categories
Although mobile app categories vary in performance across regions, several global trends are shaping the mobile app market in 2025.
| The highest number of downloads were recorded for social media (5.59 billion), film and television streaming (3.41 billion), and shopping (3 billion) in 2024, exhibiting a modest positive year-over-year growth for these subgenres globally | |
|---|---|
| In 2024, smartphone users spent 35.1% of their time on social media apps, 32.7% on entertainment apps, and 13.6% on utility and productivity apps | |
| With artificial intelligence penetrating the mobile app market, AI chatbot apps became the fastest-growing app subgenre in 2024, showing a 112% year-over-year growth | |
| Over the past two years, 15 app categories had at least 100 apps with AI-related terms added to app metadata, including productivity, photo and video, education, music, finance, lifestyle, and shopping categories | |
| Finance apps were among the most downloaded app categories in 2024, with global app downloads exceeding 7 billion and demonstrating a 8% year-over-year growth. The most popular app subgenres in this category were digital wallets and P2P payment apps (+10% YoY) and consumer banking apps (+2% YoY), indicating that consumers are increasingly opting for mobile alternatives to handle financial tasks | |
| In 2024, retail and ecommerce apps experienced a 4.4% growth globally but the demand across regions varied. For example, the downloads and time spent on retail apps dropped in the United States (by 9.6% and 4.5%, respectively), reflecting more cautious discretionary spending and a market correction following the considerable growth seen in 2023 | |
| Health and fitness apps continued their steady growth in 2024, with a surge in in-app purchase revenue (14.1%) and downloads (6.2%) worldwide. Gym and fitness apps, the top subgenre in this category, grew by 18% and accounted for 28% of total revenue, reflecting a tendency towards digital fitness solutions for both outdoor and at-home exercise | |
| While video streaming mobile apps yielded 36% more revenue from in-app purchases in 2024 than the previous year, user engagement in this category is falling. This downturn can be attributed to users’ digital fatigue, shifts in consumer spending driven by macroeconomic conditions, and strong competition from other entertainment platforms | |
| Some app categories saw notable declines in 2024. For example, downloads of antivirus and VPN apps dropped by 32% and file management apps by 24%. This decrease can be attributed to market correction after several years of rapid growth of app downloads in these subgenres | |
| In 2024, app category rankings varied significantly across demographic groups. While Gen Z and Millennials showed preference toward photo/video, entertainment, and social networking apps, older generations favored categories like productivity, medical, finance, and shopping | |
| Sports apps showed the largest number of active user sessions within a month (161), followed by lifestyle (125), finance (124), and news and magazines (106) apps. The shopping and food and drink categories showed the lowest number of sessions (10) | |
| Different app categories vary in how effectively they convert free trial users into subscribers, which reflects differences in user intent and how consumers value each category. The highest trial conversion rates were recorded in travel (54.3%), shopping (45.4%), health and fitness (44.5%), media and entertainment (40.4%), and education (40.2%) |
Low Performer
10th Percentile
Medium Performer
50th Percentile
High Perfomer
90th Percentile
Scheme title: App engagement score across categories | How many monthly active users return to the
app daily
Data source: Airship’s 2025 Mobile lifecycle benchmarks: engagement
Scheme title: Average year 1 app retention rates by categories
Data source: RevenueCat’s State of Subscription Apps 2024 report
Mobile app revenue & monetization trends
Although the growth in time spent on mobile devices is slowing, the revenue generated from in-app purchases and app subscriptions continues to rise, particularly for non-game apps.
| In the first quarter of 2025, total consumer spending on apps from both iPhone users and Android users amounted to around $40 billion, representing an 11% increase compared to the corresponding period in 2024 | |
|---|---|
| Among non-gaming applications, film and television streaming apps and social media apps generated the most revenue from in-app purchases (almost $12 billion each) in 2024 by a wide margin, experiencing rapid global growth worldwide | |
| Game mobile apps accounted for the majority of consumer spend, exceeding $80 billion in 2024, but the year-over-year growth slowed down at around 4% | |
| Although mobile games remain the most profitable app category, generating around 64% of earnings, the revenue split between apps and games in 2024 showed a slight shift toward apps, reflecting gradual changes in monetization trends | |
| Among all applications, 6 non-game apps surpassed $1 billion in global gross revenue in 2024 compared to 11 gaming apps, continuing the year-over-year trend in this distribution | |
| Typically, it takes 65 days for an app to reach a monthly revenue of $1,000 and 120 days to earn $5,000, a trend consistent across the majority of app categories | |
| In 2024, 44% of all app revenue came from subscriptions, with paid app downloads and in-app purchases representing the other most popular monetization models | |
| 12% of subscribers who cancelled their monthly subscription resubscribe within 12 months | |
| Users reactivate monthly subscriptions more eagerly (11.95%) than weekly (9.29%) or annual ones (5.89%) | |
| After 12 months of app usage, weekly subscriptions generate more user lifetime value (LTV) than monthly subscriptions | |
| In 2024, the pricing points for subscription plans mostly stayed consistent with the previous year, with 1-week at $4.99, 1-month at $9.99, and 3-month and 1-year starting at $29.99. The similar prices for 3-month and 1-year plans suggest that companies now encourage long-term commitments and offer the same value to users who subscribe for a year at a price comparable to shorter-term plans | |
| The percentage of users who converted after the trial period dropped to 37.3% in 2024, demonstrating a decrease of about 3% compared to the previous year. This drop can be attributed to changes in user behavior, lower effectiveness of free trials, app market saturation, and the rise in subscription offers | |
| In Google Play, 57.64% of advertising traffic came from apps, with the Finance category accounting for 15.86% of total ad traffic. In the App Store, the largest share of ad traffic (71.83%) originated from games, with Entertainment as the top game category (29.05%) | |
| Among creative asset formats used in mobile advertisements, video attracted the largest amount of ad traffic (51.52%), followed by banners (39.39%) and playables (9.09%) |
Scheme title: Yearly worldwide app revenue from in-app purchases, excluding mobile games 2014-2024
Data source: Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile 2025 report
Scheme title: Worldwide in-app purchase revenue growth by app category, 2024 vs 2023
Data source: Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile 2025 report
Scheme title: The average 1-week, 1-month, and 1-year subscription plan prices across app categories
Data source: RevenueCat’s State of Subscription Apps 2024 report
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Mobile app development statistics
As technologies evolve, mobile app development practices gradually transform and new development technologies emerge, making the development process more efficient and ensuring that the mobile apps align with the rising expectations of consumers.
| About 65% of international enterprises across industries have implemented mobile backend as a service (BaaS) platforms to support mobile app development. Fueled by the surge in mobile application usage and the rising demand for mobile integration, the mobile BaaS market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 45.7% from 2025 to 2033 | |
|---|---|
| The majority of mobile apps are developed using native technologies. On Apple’s App Store, 79% of apps are written in Swift, while on Google Play, 77% are built with Kotlin and 20% use Jetpack Compose | |
| Over 60% of professional Android developers use Kotlin to build apps | |
| Non-native development has shown consistent growth, with Flutter and React Native being the most used cross-platform frameworks in mobile app development. In 2024, 15% of new apps and games were built using either of the aforementioned platforms, yielding around 6 billion downloads (6% of all downloads) and $8 billion in net revenue (9% of all net revenue generated across the app stores) | |
| Businesses often opt for progressive web applications (PWA) to create mobile applications that load fast and provide offline capabilities, helping them expand their reach and increase customer engagement. For example, Starbucks’ PWA brought a twofold increase in daily active users and higher order completion rates compared to the native app. Such positive business outcomes drive the growth of the global PWA market, which is expected to expand from $5.23 billion in 2025 to over $21 billion by 2033 at a CAGR of 18.98% | |
| Among the top mobile app development challenges, mobile engineers name app performance monitoring (50%), keeping up with frequent changes (44%), and ensuring multiple device and OS compatibility (33%). In addition, 28% of mobile teams expect building apps to fit into complex IT infrastructures will become one of the top challenges in the next 5 years | |
| 79% of developers think that AI and ML will significantly affect how mobile apps will be developed in the next 5 years |
Factors influencing mobile app success
With consumer preferences and habits permanently changing, companies can face challenges in driving sustained growth of their mobile applications. Focusing on critical mobile app aspects, such as performance, security, user experience, and app store optimization (ASO), can help companies increase the visibility of their mobile apps and foster long-term user engagement.
| 1 in 5 app users expect they can complete key app tasks within 5 seconds, which demonstrates demand for high app performance. However, consumers consistently get frustrated with app issues as two-thirds of them face issues at least weekly and nearly half experience problems daily. App issues include crashes, slow app startup, slow image/video loading, and unresponsive interface elements. If the poor app performance persists, app users are ready to entirely delete an app off their phone | |
|---|---|
| 73% of mobile users frequently or occasionally stopped using an app because of frustrating visual or navigation issues, such as non-functional buttons or layout problems | |
| There are several ASO techniques that companies can use to increase app discoverability and conversion metrics, including creating custom product pages for app stores, holding in-app events, using keywords in metadata, and updating screenshots and icons for applistings. For example, custom product pages increased conversion rates by 8% for games and boosted impressions-to-installs and tap-through rates by 2.7% each for apps. In addition, 50% of top apps on Apple’s App Store updated their screenshots more than twice within a year | |
| Security remains of paramount importance for mobile app users, with 90% of them seeking information about in-app security and privacy before using new apps. Nearly 17% of consumers prefer not to use a mobile app at all if it doesn't adequately protect their data privacy |
Future projections for mobile apps
| With consumers having become more willing to pay for premium features in mobile apps, it is projected that they will spend more on apps (at a CAGR of 11.1%) than on games (at a CAGR of 4.2%) by 2030 | |
|---|---|
| Having tried best-in-class digital experiences, consumers now expect companies to create seamless journeys by integrating technologies, such as bots or virtual assistants (55%), augmented or virtual reality (55%), and AI applications (59%) | |
| Voice assistant applications are gaining traction, accounting for a market share of around $6 billion and expected to grow at a CAGR of 30.8% from 2025 to 2034 | |
| The number of monthly active users of augmented reality (AR) experiences on mobile devices is expected to rise to 1.19 billion by 2028 | |
| Companies should be prepared for a potential 25% decline in mobile app usage due to AI assistants that are likely to replace apps across different functions. In addition, there’s a chance that different brands and companies will consolidate their mobile apps to expand their user base and cover the app development and maintenance costs |
Drive mobile app success with a trusted tech partner
With intense competition in the mobile app market, fast-paced technology shifts, and evolving consumer expectations, companies can find it challenging to ensure the success of their mobile app initiatives. Collaborating with a reliable software development provider provides them with expertise needed to navigate the market intricacies and mobile app development complexities. Itransition, a tech company with 15+ years of experience in mobile app development, helps companies implement robust, competitive mobile applications that drive user engagement, deliver long-term value to users, and support business growth.
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