Mobile internet users are spoilt for choice when it comes to the sheer variety and availability of mobile apps. As of the second quarter of 2024, gaming apps were the most popular app category in the Google Play Store, accounting for 11.7 percent of available apps worldwide. Mobile education apps ranked second with a 11.5 percent share. Google Play and app monetization Google Play is the biggest digital distribution platform for Android apps worldwide, offering users over 2.26 million mobile apps to choose from. However, Google Play offers more than just apps – the platform also provides users with music, video, e-book downloads and rental services. Most mobile apps on Google Play are available for free. As of March 2024, around 97 percent of Android apps could be downloaded without having to pay for them upfront, although this does not preclude other mobile app monetization strategies such as in-app advertising and in-app purchases. As of June 2023, the ranking of leading Android apps in the Google Play Store worldwide based on revenue consists mainly of streaming and video apps. Google Play main competitor: the Apple App Store The worldwide gross app revenue of the Google Play store amounted to 11.2 billion U.S. dollars in the second quarter of 2024, a steady climb from the 10.6 billion U.S. dollars a year before. However, in terms of app revenue, Google Play is lagging behind its eternal rival, the Apple App Store. During the same period, Apple’s own digital store generated 24.6 billion U.S. dollars in mobile app revenues, with mobile gaming being the leading category for consumer spending on the platform. In June 2023, mobile-first apps DouYin and TikTok were the highest-grossing app among global iPhone users, generating roughly 372 million U.S. dollars and 324 million U.S. dollars in revenues, respectively.

How many apps are there in the Play Store? The number of available apps in the Google Play Store was most recently placed at 1.68 million apps, after surpassing 1 million apps in July 2013. Google Play Store Google Play was originally launched in October 2008 under the name Android Market. As Google’s official app store, it offers its customers a wide range of applications and digital media including music, magazines, books, film, and TV. As of April 2021, the ranking of the top-grossing Android apps worldwide is dominated by mobile games with Coin Master, Garena Free Fire, and PUBG mobile leading the ranking. This hardly comes as a surprise as it is estimated that gaming apps will account for over 70 percent of Google Play app revenues in 2024. As most apps in the Google Play Store are available for free, the company needs to utilize effective business models to secure healthy revenue. How do apps make money? Despite the robust gaming app revenues, most gaming apps are free to download and rely on monetization via in-app advertising or in-game purchases of items such as boosters and accessories. A November 2021 survey of mobile app publishers found that video ads were the most popular mobile app monetization model, followed by display ads and in-app purchases. Additionally, monetizing via subscriptions has proven an effective model for several highly popular apps, with subscription revenues hitting 18.3 billion U.S. dollars in revenues in 2021.

During the second quarter of 2024, over 2.26 million mobile apps were available on the Google Play Store, down by 18 percent compared to the previous quarter. Between the beginning of 2019 and the end of 2021, the number of mobile apps available to Android users via the Google Play Store experienced a constant increase, reaching 4.67 million apps during the last quarter of 2021. However, after 2022, the number of apps available in the Google Play Store fluctuated.

In 2022, Google Play users worldwide downloaded 110 billion mobile apps, down from 111.3 billion apps in 2021. Generating significantly more downloads than it’s iOS counterpart, the Apple App Store, Android apps on Google Play are available for a wider range of devices than those catering to Apple's closed ecosystem.

Google’s app sales continue to climb Google’s success was equally reflected in its app revenue which has steadily increased each year, reaching 38.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2020. Since 2019, the highest average number of apps released monthly on Google Play was 141.4 thousand in March 2019. Meanwhile, August 2021 saw the lowest number of apps released within the last two and a half years. Despite its success in the mobile app arena, the tech powerhouse still generates the vast majority of its revenues from advertising.

Social and dating apps are among most popular in 2021 In the first quarter of 2021, one year into the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns, the number of available dating apps grew by nearly 24 percent. Meanwhile, travel apps saw relatively little growth during this period. Facebook-owned Instagram was the most downloaded Android app in July 2021. With travel restrictions still in place in many regions of the world, communication and social apps such as Snapchat, TikTok and Telegram also featured among the most popular apps downloaded that month.

In April 2025, approximately 34 thousand mobile apps were released through the Google Play Store. This figure indicates a notable decrease compared to the previous examined period. In the measured period, the highest number of app releases via Google Play Store was recorded in March 2019, with over 141 thousand apps released.

As of the second quarter of 2024, approximately 264,000 mobile gaming apps were available in the Google Play Store, representing a 18.84 percent idecrease compared to the previous quarter.

In 2024, India was the leading global market for the Google Play Store, with users in the region generating over ** billion downloads. Brazil followed, as Android users generated approximately ***** billion app downloads from the Google Play Store during the examined period. Despite being a strong market for iOS devices, the Google Play Store generated over ***** billion app downloads in the United States in 2024.

In the second quarter of 2024, the Google Play Store hosted and distributed over 264,000 gaming apps, making it the largest category on the platform. Education apps were the second largest category on the Google Play Store, with almost 260,000 titles in the category. Comic apps represented the category hosting the smallest number of titles on the platform, with approximately 1,380 Android titles distributed to global Google Play Store users during the examined period.

Google charges developers a 30 percent fee on in-app payments. Mobile app publishers see 15 percent of fees applied to auto-renewal subscriptions. In November 2021, Google loosed up its commission fee system for app publishers in South Korea, due to the country's passing its so-called "Anti Google Bill". Signed by the South Korea’s National Assembly in the summer of 2021, the law was the first of its kind and aimed at freeing app developers from having to use exclusively the payment and billing systems. As of 2024, the standard fee for apps hosted on the Google Play Store in South Korea that used an alternative billing system was of 26 percent, or "equal to the service fee applicable for transactions via Google Play’s billing system reduced by four percent," according to Google. Similarly, in January 2023, Google updated its billing system for developers and publishers in India, complying with the demands from the country's Competition Commission.

During the most recently measured period, the number of mobile apps available to Android users in the Google Play Store decreased by 18.5 than two percent compared to the previous quarter. During the first quarter of 2024, the number of available Android apps distributed on the Google Play Store experienced a drop of 18 percent compared to the last quarter of 2023.

In the first quarter 2023, total combined Apple App Store and Google Play app downloads amounted to an estimated 35 billion. In the most recent examined period, global app downloads across the two major platforms are estimated to have experienced an increase of less than one percent compared to the previous quarter.

This statistic presents the distribution of worldwide mobile app revenues in the Google Play store from 2019 to 2025, sorted by category. In 2020, gaming apps accounted for 83 percent of global Google Play app revenues.

As of January 2024, there were approximately 114 thousand apps in the Google Play store with an average rating of 4.5 start or higher out of 5 stars. In total, less than 500 thousand Android apps had a rating. In comparison, over two million apps in the Google Play store had less than three user ratings.

In the first quarter of 2024, users downloaded approximately 25.6 billion apps from Google Play. This represents a decrease compared to the first quarter of the previous year, when Android users downloaded approximately 27 billion apps from the Google Play Store. In contrast, mobile app only generated roughly 8.4 billion downloads in the Apple App Store. The Google Play platform has always made up the bulk of app downloads but the Apple App Store is stronger in terms of revenue generation.

In the second quarter of 2024, the Google Play Store hosted and distributed over 4,200 parenting apps, down by 13 percent compared to the previous quarter. The number of parenting apps hosted in the Google Play Store has experienced a constant growth from the beginning of 2017 to the end of 2021, reaching the peak of 7,819 apps hosted on the platform for users to download in the fourth quarter of 2021. However, the number of parenting apps available to global Android consumers experienced a constant decrease between the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2024.

In February 2025, TikTok was the most-downloaded app in the Google Play Store worldwide, generating almost 65 million downloads from Android users. WhatsApp was the second-most popular app with approximately 41 million downloads from global users. The Google Play Store ecosystem Launched in March 2016, the Google Play Store is the major app distributor for global Android users, as well as one of the most important mobile app stores in the industry. As of the second quarter of 2024, over 2.26 million mobile apps were available on the Google Play Store, after hitting the record number of 4.67 million apps available to users during the fourth quarter of 2021. Android users browsing the Google Play Store can find any type of mobile app, from dating to mobile productivity, with gaming apps being the most popular app category on the platform. Maintenance of apps hosted in the Google Play Store helps improve the overall quality of content proposed to users. Built for success: app optimization in the Google Play Store Being featured in the first positions on mobile app stores results page is key to the success of an application, as it improves impressions and increases the chances of downloads. User satisfaction and good experiences are, as always, the top variables to determine apps’ popularity. As of February 2022, the average rating of mobile apps figuring in the first 10 positions on the Google Play Store was almost four stars, with reviews ranging from 3.90 to 3.98 stars. When it came to SEO, it was found that mobile apps spotting category-specific target keywords in the titles ranked higher than those who did not. Additionally, app icons in the Google Play Store presented industry-specific colors for different categories, like black for gaming apps and red for food and drink apps. Highly recognizable app category colors might not only help users in their app search endeavors, but also increase brand awareness.

In 2024, the United States saw almost ************ U.S. dollars in revenues from the Google Play Store. Despite being one of Apple's first markets, the U.S. was also the highest-grossing market for the Google Play Store by far. Android users in Japan grossed ************U.S. dollars in the same period, while the Google Play Store in the United Kingdom saw in-app revenues of approximately ****** million U.S. dollars in 2024.

During the last measured period, there were 36,260 healthcare and medical apps available on the Google Play Store, a decrease of 20 percent compared to the previous quarter. Between the beginning of 2020 and the end of 2021, the number of mHealth apps available to Android users via the Google Play Store kept growing, reaching over 65,300 thousand during the last quarter of 2021.

Between January and March 2024, installs of potentially harmful applications (PHAs) via the Google Play Store represented less than 0.1 percent of all app installs on the platform. Of all the installations, less than 0.04 percent contained privilege escalation. An additional 13 percent contained Maskware, while 0.00009 percent of the total contained Trojan malware.

As of April 2025, 36 percent of apps on the Google Play Store were updated on a weekly basis. In comparison, 73 percent of mobile apps were updated on a monthly basis. Over 95 percent of Android mobile apps hosted on the Google Play Store were updated each year.