It’s not so unexpected that app spending has grown leaps and bounds this year as a lot of people were stuck inside their homes during the pandemic. In fact, it has been a record-setting year for the market as the global app spend numbers surpassed $100 billion in a single year for the first time ever just last November. And on Christmas day in particular, people around the world spent $407.6 million on Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store.
That number for just one day is a 34.5% increase from the same period in 2019 and is even 17 points higher than the growth recorded last year for that day as well. It’s also 4.5% of the total spending in December as of this writing. All in all, people spend $9 billion globally from December 1 to 27, according to Sensor Tower Store Intelligence estimates. Obviously, majority of that was spent on purchasing games and in-app purchases with $295.6 million, up 27% from last year. Tencent’s Honor of Kings was the top in this category.
Meanwhile, for non-game apps, we spent $112 million (well if you bought an app or an in-app thing that day) on Christmas day alone which is up 59% compared to last year. In terms of category, the top for non-game apps is Entertainment. Aside from games, the other top app was TikTok not surprisingly. People spent $4.7 million on the platform which is pretty big for a social media / video sharing app.
The top spenders on Christmas Day were U.S consumers, shelling out $130 million across both Apple and Google, bringing 38.7% growth year on year. The top mobile game there is Roblox with a spend of $6.6 million while Disney+ was the top non-game app, generating $2.6 million. The bulk of spending on apps worldwide is on Apple’s App Store with $68.4 of the total revenue at $278.6 million while Google Play got $129 million.
There’s just one more day to go this 2020 but it’s safe to say that this was a record year for the app industry. This was of course an “unprecedented shift in consumer behavior and spending” because of the lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders but this eventually became good news for the app industry in general.