With roughly 5.3 billion mobile phone users worldwide − or 57% of the world’s population − using smartphones, global mobile app-generated revenue is expected to increase by 55%, reaching $613 billion by 2025.
This is according to a report compiled by fintech firm Mejores Apuestas, which notes the global mobile app market continues to surge and is expected to hit over $400 billion in value, by the end of 2021, growing by 25% year-on-year (YOY).
App revenue covers all revenue generation through mobile apps, including advertising, in-app purchases and subscriptions.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the global mobile apps industry was valued at around $255 billion; since then, annual revenue has been growing by around 25% each year. Statistics show this figure is forecast to increase by another $213 billion over the next four years, notes the report.
China, US, South Korea and Japan are expected to see the highest YOY revenue growth between 2021 and 2025.
“Over the years, mobile app developers have created an intensely competitive market, releasing millions of new apps and trying to capture the attention of an increasingly mobile society,” says Jastra Kranjec, research and report editor.
“Having a mobile presence has become imperative to companies across different sectors, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only speeded up this digital transformation. Since the pandemic hit, billions of people started using mobile apps not just for social networking, gaming, communication and entertainment, but also to educate, get medical advice and do business, providing additional value to their users – fuelling the growth of the entire industry.”
Referencing the Statista Digital Market Outlook, the report notes that mobile games will remain the largest revenue stream of the entire industry, bringing $387 billion in revenue by 2025 and 53% more than in 2021.
Far behind, social networking ranked as the second-largest app category, with $39.6 billion in revenue this year – this figure is projected to jump to $60.8 billion by 2025.
Entertainment and photo and video apps follow, with $41.2 billion and $25.1 billion revenue by 2025, respectively.
Although not among the top five app categories, education and business apps are also set to witness impressive growth in the following years.
Education apps are forecast to generate $10.1 billion in revenue by 2025, up from $6.4 billion in 2021, while business app revenue will grow by 68% and hit $4.2 billion in this same period.
“The surging demand for mobile app solutions and the growing number of smartphone users will continue driving the downloads growth. The total number of downloads will hit 220.5 billion in 2021 and then jump to 312.5 billion in the next four years,” adds Kranjec.
According to the App Annie State of Mobile Report 2021, consumers downloaded 218 billion apps in 2020 across iOS and Google Play, up 7% YOY. This growth was mainly pushed by the pandemic, which advanced the adoption rate to the equivalent of two to three years in 12 months, notes the App Annie report.
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