In September 2022, Pandora was the top-grossing music and audio app in the Google Play Store worldwide, with around 6.45 million U.S. dollars in revenues. Apple Music was the second-most successful audio and music app with 645 thousand U.S. dollars in revenues from global users.

In September 2022, QQ Music was the top-grossing iPhone music app in the Apple App Store worldwide. The streaming service generated roughly **** million U.S. dollars in revenues from iOS users. NetEase Cloud Music ranked second, generating **** million U.S. dollars in revenues. YouTube Music was the third-most successful music app with approximately **** million U.S. dollars in revenues from global users.

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 September 2022, OfferUp was the top-grossing iPhone shopping app in the Apple App Store worldwide. The shopping platform generated over *** thousand U.S. dollars in revenues from iOS users. Marketplace was the second-most successful shopping app with roughly *** thousand U.S. dollars in revenue from global users.

In September 2022, TikTok was the top-grossing iPhone entertainment app in the Apple App Store worldwide. The short-video social platform generated over ** million U.S. dollars in revenues from iOS users. The mobile app of video streaming platform Disney+ ranked second, with approximately ** million U.S. dollars in revenues, while the Tencent Video app ranked third with **** million U.S. dollars in revenues.

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.

In September 2022, the Roblox mobile gaming platform was the top-grossing iPad app in the Apple App Store worldwide, generating approximately 42 million U.S. dollars in revenues. The Candy Crush Saga came in second, with over 26.5 million U.S. dollars. DoubleDown ranked third, with the gaming app generating close to 10 million U.S. dollars in revenues from iPad users.

Key Apple App Store StatisticsApple App Store App and Game RevenueApple App Store Gaming App RevenueApple App Store App RevenueApple App Store App and Game DownloadsApple App Store Game...

Keeping track of your health is, for many people, a continuous task. Monitoring what you eat, how often you exercise and how much water you drink can be time-consuming, fortunately there are tens of...

In 2024, TikTok was still the most downloaded mobile app worldwide. The short-video sharing app generated 825.5 million downloads during the same year. The social video app Instagram followed with 817 million downloads. Fast-fashion app Temu ranked in fifth, with over 516 million downloads for global users in the last examined year, while ByteDance-published video editing app CapCut had around 410 million downloads. TikTok Owned by the Beijing-based tech company ByteDance and launched in 2017, TikTok quickly gained popularity after the acquisition of Musical.ly in 2018. In 2025, the number of TikTok users worldwide was expected to exceed 955 million, with the United States being one of the leading markets. In 2024, TikTok engaged the largest audience from Indonesia, with over 157 million consumers from the region using the app. United States, and Brazil followed with 120.5 and 105.2 users, respectively. Meta Platforms In October 2021, Facebook was renamed and rebranded as Meta, with the CEO Mark Zuckerberg aiming to be associated with the metaverse. Meta’s products include Facebook, Messager, Instagram, and WhatsApp, also known as Meta’s Family of Apps (FoA), generating most of Meta’s revenue. Moreover, these are among the most popular social networks worldwide. As part of its rebranding, Meta’s Reality Labs business segment develops a series of virtual reality (VR) headsets, the Meta Quest - one of the leading VR devices on the market.

Apple is one of the most influential and recognisable brands in the world, responsible for the rise of the smartphone with the iPhone. Valued at over $2 trillion in 2021, it is also the most valuable...

Mobile games make up the majority of video games released each year, with thousands of new additions to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store every year. By the mid-2010s, mobile games had...

The Chinese fashion e-commerce giant Shein Group has surged to prominence. Founded in 2008 as ZZKKO, it quickly evolved into the world's largest fashion retailer in 2022. Its app attracted almost ** million downloads worldwide between January 1 and June 29, 2025. Faster and cheaper The online-only fast-fashion company has a unique business model. Enabled by algorithms and data analytics, its swift production and fashion trend prediction abilities have set it apart in the fast fashion e-commerce world. Its algorithm-driven supply chain enables it to reduce the production time to * days and offer thousands of new items on its site every week at much lower price levels than its competitors. Behind the low-price tags The fashion retailer also collaborates with numerous fashion bloggers to harness platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Combined with its adept use of social media marketing, SHEIN achieved a staggering ** billion U.S. dollars in gross merchandise value in 2024. Despite its rapid growth and popularity, Shein's reputation is marred by a barrage of controversies, ranging from labor rights violations and trademark disputes to environmental concerns to health and safety issues.

In June 2024, Fitbit was the top-grossing health and fitness app in the Google Play Store worldwide. The platform generated over 4.76 million U.S. dollars in revenues from Android users. Strava was the second highest-grossing health and fitness app with roughly 3.1 million U.S. dollars in revenues from global Android users in the examined month. MyFitnessPal ranked third, having generated around 2.8 million U.S. dollars in revenues in the last examined month.

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 **** percent of available apps worldwide. Mobile education apps ranked second with a **** percent share. Google Play and app monetization Google Play is the biggest digital distribution platform for Android apps worldwide, offering users over **** 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 ** 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 **** billion U.S. dollars in the second quarter of 2024, a steady climb from the **** 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 **** 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 *** million U.S. dollars and *** million U.S. dollars in revenues, respectively.

As of February 2022, the majority of the leading apps appearing first to users on the Apple App Store results page were free or freemium apps. Paid downloads appeared to be a less frequent monetization option, but still interested *** percent of the highest-ranking gaming apps, as well as **** percent of the highest-ranking health and fitness apps. Approximately ** percent of all finance apps were free, while around **** percent adopted a freemium model. Approximately ** percent of the highest-grossing social media apps adopted a freemium model, while more than ** percent were fully free.

eBay is an e-commerce platform, at first only providing customer-to-customer auction services, expanding into business-to-consumer shortly afterwards. In the 2000’s, eBay went on a spending...

Uma Musume Pretty Derby was the top-grossing mobile squad RPG game worldwide in the first half of 2022, generating approximately 410 million U.S. dollars in mobile revenues. Second-ranked RAID: Shadow Legends saw users spending 155 million U.S. dollars on in-game items. Squad RPGs allow players to collect characters and use them to fight in-game battles.

Ecommerce marketplace app Shopee started life out as a customer-to-customer marketplace, in the same vein as eBay, but over the past few years has remodelled itself as a b2c marketplace. That switch...

In 2007, a cash-strapped Brian Chesky came up with a shrewd way to pay his $1,200 San Francisco apartment rent. He would offer “Air bed and breakfast”, which consisted of three airbeds,...