US iPhone owners spent average of $35 on apps in 2015, mostly on games

An average of $35 per active iPhone was spent on apps and in-app purchases in the U.S. in 2015, with most of the money going towards mobile games, according to a new market research report.

There were about 110 million active iPhones in the U.S. last year, said app marketing firm Sensor Tower, citing data from sources like Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. That figure was compared against Sensor Tower's own estimates for iPhone app downloads and revenue, since Apple rarely breaks out specific figures for the App Store.

Within the $35 tally, the lion's share of that — $25 — was spent on games. Although games are a consistently popular category at the App Store, that figure may have been inflated by so-called "free-to-play" games like Game of War and Clash Royale, which often force players to make in-app purchases to achieve real progress.

The next most popular category was music at just $3.40. Social networking, entertainment, and "lifestyle" apps attained averages of $1.80, $1, and 40 cents per iPhone, respectively, while the remaining $6.80 was split between 18 other categories.

An average of 10.5 games were installed per device, easily beating out the 3.4 from the next closest install category: photo and video. Social networking, entertainment, and lifestyle apps rounded out the top five.

Sensor Tower's study was notably narrow in scope, as it excluded iPad apps.

11 Comments

cropr 1142 comments · 11 Years

About 8 years ago

sog35 said:

Time for Apple to get into the ad business. That is where the real money is made

By stopping iAd, Apple has left the ad business. A 30% margin on apps and in app purchases without spending a lot of effort and cost, must be much more profitable

techlover 879 comments · 11 Years

About 8 years ago

It would be nice to see the breakdown not as an average of ALL iPhone users, rather a breakdown of how many users spent X amount of money on X number of apps.

It appears there are a few whales who spend the lions share of the money made on in-app purchases on a relatively few number of games in the App Store.

To say that "the average" iPhone user spends $35 per year seems to be a bit disingenuous when one person might spend $10,000 on Candy Crush or Clash of Clans just because they can.

No doubt there is plenty of money flying around the App Store but this kind of data seems to be not relevant.

EDIT: Can we make this a bit of a survey? I don't think I have spent $35 on apps, music, etc. since I bought the first iPhone. What are you folks spending?