In June 2023, Disney+ generated approximately 70.6 million U.S. dollars in global revenues through the Google Play Store. With over 50.7 million U.S. dollars, HBO Max ranked second, while TikTok ranked third with around 38 million U.S. dollars in revenues from Android users worldwide. The majority of high-grossing apps in the measured month were gaming apps.

Google Play Store apps overview As of the first quarter of 2021, Google Play Store was the leading app store worldwide by number of available apps. In 2021, Google Play Store saw more than 111 billion app downloads, while users generated nearly 48 billion U.S. dollars in consumer spending on mobile apps on the platform. In the first quarter of 2021, the most popular category of apps on the platform were gaming apps, followed by education apps, and business apps.

App revenue There are many different monetization models for mobile apps, the most common ones are free apps with in-app purchases, paid apps, paid apps with in-app purchases, and subscriptions. From humble beginnings, the mobile gaming market has flourished: gaming apps accounted for 83 percent of gross app revenues in the Google Play Store in 2020. In comparison, social media apps only accounted for three percent of app revenues. The Apple App Store paints a similar picture with gaming apps again accounting for the lion's share of revenue, albeit to a lesser extent than in the Google Play store.

Entertainment apps were the highest-grossing category by far among mobile consumers in the United States. In 2024, entertainment apps generated over **** billion U.S. dollars in revenues. Casual gaming apps generated around *** billion million U.S. dollars in revenues. Strategy gaming apps represented the ***** highest-grossing app category, with *** billion U.S. dollars in revenues from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store in 2024.

Games were the highest earning app category worldwide between 2023 and 2024. In the examined period games generated 55 percent of the app market revenues. Entertainment apps were the second highest-grossing category in the global app market, making up 14 percent of the total revenues for the industry. In comparison, lifestyle and productivity apps comprised three percent of apps revenue, respectively. Games were also the most downloaded app category in the same period.

The mobile app with the highest revenue in Portugal in 2024 was Google One, with over *** million U.S. dollars in revenue. The streaming service Disney + grossed over **** million U.S. dollars. The other apps on the list are mostly gaming apps like Coin Master, Roblox, Candy Crush Saga, and Monopoly Go!.

Mobile gaming has become a huge industry, with successful game developers in line to generate millions from their mobile games. In March 2021, Roblox was the top grossing iPhone gaming app in the United States, generating daily revenues of over 3.09 million U.S. dollars. Second-ranked Candy Crush Saga grossed approximately 2.03 million U.S. dollars per day. Pokémon GO was ranked seventh with a daily gross of more than 463,000 U.S. dollars

Pokémon GO - a global phenomenon
Pokémon GO is a massively multiplayer location-based mobile video game which uses augmented reality. The project is jointly created by The Pokémon Company and Niantic and has been available since July 2016 on the iOS and Android platforms. Just like in the video game series, the goal is to capture Pokémon and battle it out against other trainers. In 2020, Pokémon GO player spending hit 916.5 million U.S. dollars worldwide, which was the mobile app’s most profitable year since launching in 2016, when it grossed approximately 588.77 million U.S. dollars. The location-based augmented reality (AR) game involves catching, training, and battling virtual creatures (Pokémon) in real-world locations via smartphone. While the initial Pokémon craze has slowly faded, the game still enjoys growing numbers of active users around the world and in the Asia-Pacific region in particular.

Online app stores
With individual gaming apps generating millions of dollars of revenue on a daily basis, it is no surprise that app stores are also raking in the revenue. In the second quarter of 2020, Google Play Store recorded gross revenues of 7.7 billion U.S. dollars from mobile games, up from 6.9 billion generated in the previous quarter. The numbers for Apple's App Store were even more impressive, with revenue from mobile games on its iOS platform reaching 33.2 billion U.S. dollars worldwide in 2018. Interestingly, despite Apple's App Store leading the way in terms of revenue, Google Play recorded significantly more mobile game downloads in 2018. A total of 38.3 billion mobile games were downloaded globally across both app stores in that year, out of which the vast majority, 29.4 billion downloads in total, were attributed to Google Play.

In May 2025, TikTok was the top-grossing app in Canada, generating approximately **** million U.S. dollars in revenues from users. The gaming app Candy Crush Saga was the fourth-most popular app with around **** million U.S. dollars in revenues from Canadian users.

In February 2025, ***************** was the top-grossing gaming app in the Google Play Store worldwide. The survival game title generated ***** million U.S. dollars in revenues from Android users. *********** was the second-most-grossing gaming app title with approximately ** million U.S. dollars in revenue during that month.

In April 2025, ************ was the top-grossing gaming app for iPhone in the United States. The board game generated roughly ***** million U.S. dollars in revenues from iPhone users. *********** was the second-most grossing gaming app title during that month, with approximately ***** million U.S. dollars in revenue.

As of the second quarter of 2024, gaming apps were the most popular category available in the Apple App Store, making up a share of approximately 12 percent of all iOS apps in hosted in the platform. Business apps were the second-most popular category in the Apple App Store with a share of 10.11 percent of active apps being apps in this category. Utilities apps were the third most popular iOS app category, accounting for a total of over 9.73 percent of active apps. iOS apps in the Apple App Store As nowadays it is inconceivable to imagine smartphones without the abundance of mobile applications, the number of available iOS mobile apps distributed via the Apple App Store has consistently grown, reaching the peak of 2.2 million available apps during the first quarter of 2021. As of the beginning of 2022, the highest-ranking mobile apps on the results page of the Apple App Store had an average of 31.7 thousand reviews, and received an average rating of 3.35 stars. Mobile gaming on the Apple App Store Gaming apps are the most popular apps based on availability and often rank as the most downloaded and highest-grossing apps. In 2024, The Honor of Kings was the top grossing gaming app, grossing more than nine million U.S. dollars worldwide. The average price for a gaming app is about 47 cents, while the average app price is just under one U.S. dollar. Common app revenue models include free apps with in-app purchases, paid apps without in-app purchases, and paid apps with in-app purchases. Gaming apps, which frequently generate revenue through in-game item purchases, were the top-grossing category on the Apple App Store, generating almost 52 billion U.S. dollars from global users in 2021.

In 2022, gaming apps accounted for 58 percent of global Apple App Store app spending, representing the highest-grossing app category for iOS users. Entertainment apps claimed a 10 percent revenue share each from global iOS users during 2022. By 2027, revenues of entertainment apps on the Apple App Store are estimated to account to 13 percent of the total, while gaming apps will account for roughly 50 percent of all iOS spending.

In March 2024, cloud storage app Google One was the highest-grossing app for Android users in Sweden, with *** thousand U.S. dollars in revenues. Entertainment app Disney+ ranked second, and it generated around ***** thousand U.S. dollars in revenues from Google Play users in Sweden. Social video app TikTok generated *** thousand U.S. dollars in revenues during the examined period.

In April 2025, ************ was the top-grossing gaming app in the Google Play Store in the United States. The board game title generated ***** million U.S. dollars in revenues from Android users. ********************** was the second-most-grossing gaming app title, with approximately ***** million U.S. dollars in revenue during that month.

The world of video gaming is diverse, ranging from mobile gaming to PC gaming and console gaming. Over the past years, there has been an increase in downloads and mobile game usage among kids as well as adults, which has, in turn, led to an increase in mobile gaming revenue. One of the most popular mobile games of the year was Last War:Survival, which grossed more than 752 million U.S. dollars worldwide. The highest-grossing mobile game of 2025 so far was Chinese MOBA title Honor of Kings.

As of June 2025, Tinder was the highest-grossing dating app worldwide. Tinder generated approximately *********** U.S. dollars among global users. Bumble saw in-app revenues of around *** million U.S. dollars, while Match group-owned Hinge ranked third, generating around *** million U.S. dollars in app revenues as of June 2025.

In August 2022, TikTok was the top-grossing app in the Google Play Store in Switzerland, generating approximately 318 thousand U.S. dollars in revenues. Mobile gaming app State of Survival followed, with more than 136 thousand U.S. dollars in revenues from Android users. Mobile gaming app Lara Croft GO ranked third with 116.8 thousand U.S. dollars in revenues from the Google Play Store in Switzerland.

In May 2025, YouTube was the highest grossing non-game entertainment app in Hong Kong, generating around **** million U.S. dollars of revenue. RedNote, also known as Xiaohongshu, rose to fifth place.

In September 2022, Coin Master was the top-grossing app in the Google Play Store in Germany. The game generated more than **** million U.S. dollars in revenues from Android users. TikTok was the second-most popular app with *** million U.S. dollars in revenues from German Android users.

In June 2024, Google One was the highest grossing productivity app for Android users worldwide by far, as the app generated almost 114 million U.S. dollars. Microsoft One Drive followed, with only 8.9 million U.S. dollars in revenues among global Android users. ChatGPT ranked third, with Android users generating around 5.3 million U.S. dollars in revenues in the examined period.

Entertainment apps were the highest-grossing category for global consumers in 2024. Entertainment apps, such as video apps, generated approximately ** billion U.S. dollars of in-app revenues across the Google Play Store and Apple App Store worldwide. Gaming role playing apps generated **** billion U.S. dollars in revenues from global users, while strategy games on mobile generated more than *** billion U.S. dollars in the examined period.

In October 2024, YouTube was the highest grossing non-game app in Hong Kong, earning around *** million U.S. dollars of revenue. The other top spots were taken by service providers in music, streaming, and social media markets.