Mobile apps in the first half of 2021: consumer spending and install growth
You’re most probably reading this on your phone. If so, then you are with the 92.8% of people that use mobile devices to go online, and 88% of this time they spend on apps (and so do you). Today we’d like to cover the analysis of the mobile app development industry’s growth, what sectors are evolving at a breakneck speed and why you need to launch your app yesterday.
According to Sensor Tower, worldwide consumer spending on mobile apps reached $64.9 billion (App Store + Google Play) in H1'2021, which is 24.8% more than in 2020. As you may assume, mobile game spending estimated by $44.7 billion makes up the largest part of the overall spend.
“Consumer spend outside of games was driven by sports, finance, business, book, and entertainment apps” (“Consumer spending in mobile apps hit a record $64.9 billion during the first half of 2021” by Sarah Perez for TechCrunch).
As for apps downloads, it has significantly slowed, Sensor Tower reported. But the thing is that they compared the rates to 2020 which was unavoidably marked by a global surge of new mobile app installs due to pandemic. On top of the list of the most downloaded apps was TikTok (384.6 million new installs), then went Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, Zoom, Snapchat, CapCut, and Google Meet.
We were happy to find out that Sensor Tower also narrowed down their analysis to cover the state of the marketplace apps (in the U.S), as the C2C segment is one of the areas of our main interest. According to this report, the top marketplace apps like Amazon and Wish maintained a 33% market share; the top 3 categories, which are general, resale, and car buying, improved their user retention rate — 23% in 1Q21 comparing to 18% in 1Q20.
Our team has also recently launched a marketplace app with 2 types of users and a loyalty program that alerts users of the deals at cafes, shops, and restaurants. The project has been successfully launched in Russia and at the moment the owners plan a European expansion.
These were the reasons why you better put down your phone and start planning your own next big app now! Roonyx team is always here to help in turning your ideas into reality.
