Consumers Spent Record $23.4 Billion On Mobile Apps In Q1

App Annie found that mobile app purchases reached a record $23.4 billion in Q1 2020. Q1 also saw over 31 billion new app downloads, a 15 percent increase from Q4 2019. App Annie’s Q1 Global App Market Index suggests that users are exploring new ways to use their phones while on coronavirus lockdown.

Consumers downloaded 22.5 billion new apps on Google Play, a five percent increase year-over-year, and 9 billion apps on iOS, a 15 percent growth year-over-year. Non-gaming apps accounted for 55 percent of all downloads on Google Play and 65 percent on iOS.

Worldwide, weekly time spent in apps and games on Android phones increased 20 percent year-over-year in Q1 2020.

TikTok was the most downloaded app across iOS and Android, followed by WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Facebook Messenger. 

Facebook topped the list in terms of monthly active users (MAU), followed by WhatsApp, Facebook, WeChat, Instagram and TikTok; Tinder came in first for most consumer spend, followed by YouTube, Netflix, IQIYI and Tencent Video.

Consumer spend on iOS grew five percent year-over-year to $15 billion in Q1 and on Google Play, five percent year-over-year to over $8.3 billion. Non-gaming apps accounted for 15 percent of consumer spend on Google Play and 35 percent of consumer spend on iOS.

The US and China led consumer spend on iOS while the US, Japan and South Korea led consumer spend on Google Play.

Games, tools and entertainment comprise the categories most downloaded on Google Play although consumers behaviors are changing to reflect growth in health and fitness, education and business, which all saw strong quarter-over-quarter growth in downloads of 40 percent, 35, percent and 30 percent, respectively. 

In terms of consumer spend, social and entertainment were the largest categories on Google Play whereas games, entertainment and photo and video were the largest categories on iOS. 

Games, photo and video and entertainment remained the largest downloaded categories on iOS with education and business seeing quarter-over-quarter growth of 40 percent and 35 percent, respectively.