App Store spending could almost double by 2024

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Money on Unsplash
And coronavirus pandemic isn't likely to hurt it, either.
Photo: Pepi Stojanovski/Unsplash

Customer spending on mobile apps could nearly double over the next five years, according to forecasting carried out by leading app analytics platform Sensor Tower Store Intelligence.

In research published Wednesday, the firm suggests spending on the iOS App Store and Google Play store will approach $171 billion by 2024. That’s 2x the amount that was spent in 2019, meaning around 20% year-on-year growth.

Drilling down on just the App Store figures, Sensor Tower forecasts worldwide consumer spending of $115.4 billion in four years. For 2020, it estimates that customers will spend $67.3 billion for the year.

That means App Store revenue increasing by 1.7x during that period. Sensor Tower estimates Google Play spending will increase from $34.7 billion this year to $55.5 billion in 2024.

Sensor Tower app store spending
How app store spending could increase over the next several years.
Photo: Sensor Tower

That Google Play in 2024 won’t even hit App Store figures today highlights the spending disparity between the two platforms. Sensor Tower says that Apple’s App Store will represent 67 cents of every app store dollar spent in 2024.

App Store growth in the time of coronavirus

Sensor Tower also claims that app spending is unlikely to be too negatively impact by the current COVID-19 pandemic. The firm notes that:

“We project that global consumer spending in mobile apps and games during 2020 will suffer only marginally as the result of reduced purchasing power brought about by COVID-19, compared to our initial forecasts for the year.”

Sensor Tower is not the first group to suggest that the current pandemic will not have a negative impact (and could even have a positive one) on App Store growth. Unlike many other industries, the app economy benefits from customers having more time isolated at home. As a result, the app analytics company expects that the app industry will be able to better “weather these uncertain times” than other industries.

How has your app spending changed during your time in lockdown? Let us know in the comments below.

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