2017 Mobile Market Rundown

Sensor Tower has released its annual mobile app spending report, revealing a healthy, growing market. Spending on mobile app stores continued to grow at a brisk pace last year, with revenue from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store increasing by 34.7 and 34.2 percent, respectively. Despite similar growth rates, however, Apple continues to vastly outstrip its mobile competitor, earning $38.5 billion to Google’s more modest $20.1 billion.

According to Sensor Tower’s data, first-time installs increased much more rapidly for Google than for Apple, the figure growing 16.7 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively. This is likely a byproduct of Google’s higher adoption rate in developing markets.

The statistics for mobile games follow a remarkably similar curve: an overall 30 percent growth in revenue across both platforms and an overall 14.6 percent in first-time installs, most of which came from Android phones.

Overall, Netflix took the top spot for individual non-game app revenue, earning $510 million in subscriptions. Tinder held the number two spot, up from position 4 in 2016.


For mobile users, social media still dominates. According to data by eMarketer, 74.7 percent of mobile internet users accessed social media on their phone, and 82.5 percent of social media users accessed their accounts on mobile at least once per month.

Facebook unsurprisingly dominated the mobile social network userbase last year, with 1.54 billion users, or 62.2 percent of all social network users. Instagram had 594 million active accounts last year, making up 24 percent of all social network users.

Consumers Believe Taking A Stand Matters

New research by Sprout Social indicates that, despite the potential for missteps and mistakes, brands have more to gain than lose from maintaining a coherent political stance. Among survey respondents, 66 percent want brands to take a stand on difficult issues, and 58 percent are happy to see brands post about them on social media.

Though this tendency is more prevalent among liberals (78 percent of liberals and 52 percent of conservatives), the majority of consumers on either side of the political spectrum expect brands to weigh in. For those that do, rewards are notable: 44 percent reported a greater purchase intent, and 52 percent reported increased brand loyalty.

The Future Of Martech

Marketers are continuing to bring media buying in-house, according to research by Centro. Among the 153 ad executives surveyed, 81 percent planned to bring at least some aspects of programmatic advertising in-house in the next year, and 59 percent planned to stop outsourcing their programmatic purchases to third parties.

When asked for their reasoning, 59 percent of the respondents claimed a wish for more control, 41 percent hoped for an increased revenue stream and 39 percent sought greater transparency.

A forecast by Dentsu Aegis Network predicts that ad spending in the Asia Pacific region will grow by 4.2 percent in the coming year, measurably higher than the expected global growth rate of 3.6 percent. Much of this growth will come from digital media channels, which Dentsu predicts will account for 38.3 percent of total ad spending by the end of 2018. Programmatic spending will increase by 23 percent, as mobile video and social ads continue to eat up more of the digital pie.

“The latest ad spend forecasts show a market in transformation, but not recession. The challenge for brands is to navigate an uneven economic outlook alongside a rapidly evolving tech and innovation landscape. In many markets, disruptive innovation – from mobile, voice activation and new ad tech players – is still providing new sources of growth and we forecast this trend will continue into 2018,” said Jerry Buhlmann, chief executive of Dentsu Aegis Network.

Despite expected growth in the digital market, research by Kantar Millward Brown indicates increasing penalties to neglecting more traditional channels. According to its data, there is an increasing divide between marketer expectations and reality when it comes to multichannel marketing—89 percent of marketers believe their campaigns to be integrated, while only 58 percent of consumers share that opinion.

“Consumers feel overwhelmed by advertising from all angles while marketers struggle to make the most of ad formats and channels to best reach consumers, and the latest AdReaction report unveils a disconnect between how marketers and consumers perceive campaign success,” said Duncan Southgate, global brand director for media and digital at Kantar Millward Brown.

According to Kantar Millward Brown, well-integrated and customized campaigns are 57 percent more effective, but just 46 percent of the ad campaigns it tested were sufficiently integrated.