According to App Annie's State of Mobile 2022 report, which app spending on mobile apps reached $170 billion in 2021, up 19 percent year-over-year and just one percentage point down from the company's growth rate in its previous annual report. The report provides a comprehensive look at the app economy of Apple's App Store, Google Play, and domestic third-party Android app stores.
The report shows a record record of 230 billion app downloads in 2021, but the growth rate itself is slowing. In a January 2021 report, App Annie reported that downloads grew 7% year-over-year during 2020 and has dropped to just 5% in 2021. Download growth last year was primarily driven by emerging markets such as India, as well as Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Egypt.
It's also clear that consumers are spending more and more time in apps — in some cases even more than they spend watching TV. In the top 10 markets analyzed by the study, the average time spent in apps in 2021 exceeded 4 hours and 48 minutes, an increase of 30% over 2019. This includes the averages for Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico, India, Japan, Turkey, Singapore, Canada, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, Australia, Argentina, France, Germany and China.
Most of that time is spent on social, photo, and video apps, with 7 minutes of every 10 minutes spent on mobile phones over the past year. These categories, along with entertainment apps, also attract Gen Z users, especially in the United States.
In the U.S., Gen Z's most commonly used apps include Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and Netflix. Millennials, meanwhile, prefer Facebook, Messenger, Amazon, and WhatsApp. Generation X, now classified as a baby boomer, uses Weather Channel, Amazon Alexa, NewsBreak and Ring.
This increase in time spent in applications has a direct impact on consumer spending. In the United States, the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have forced users to shop, work, study, play and play at home over the past year. App Annie said this led to an "amazing" increase in consumer spending as the market increased by $43 billion in 2021, or $10.4 billion more than in 2020, or 30 percent year-over-year growth — above the global average.
In terms of consumer spending, 233 apps and games generated more than $100 million in revenue in 2021, and 13 games generated more than $1 billion. That's up 20 percent from 2020, when 193 apps and games exceeded the $100 million mark and only 8 titles exceeded $1 billion a year.
In addition to consumer spending that includes paid apps, subscriptions, and in-app purchases, the broader mobile app market reached $295 billion in 2021, up 23 percent year-over-year, despite concerns among marketers about Apple's privacy changes and the blow to IDFA. In 2022, with the help of big events such as the Beijing Olympics and the US midterm elections, the market is expected to grow to $350 billion.
New mobile app launches also grew in 2021, with publishers launching 2 million new apps and games, bringing the total number of apps and games ever released across the App Store and Google Play to more than 21 million. Of course, older apps and games were later removed during those years by the publishers themselves or the app store when they were cleaned up. Currently, there are 5.4 million "live" apps and games in the App Store, of which 1.8 million are on iOS and 3.6 million are on Google Play.
Google Play also accounted for 77 percent of all new releases last year, while games accounted for 15 percent of all releases across both stores, the report notes.
App Annie's full report also takes an in-depth look at individual app categories, including gaming, finance, retail, video streaming, food and beverage, health and fitness, social, travel, dating, and more.