Revenue from Apple's iOS App Store more than twice that of Google Play

Google's Play Store may be approaching Apple's App Store in terms of app volume, but the App Store remains by far the highest generator of revenue, pulling in more than twice the revenue of the Play store according to a new analysis.

App Annie's Market Report Q1 2013 took a look at the state of the two major app repositories, finding that the App Store generated 2.6x the app revenue of Google Play over the past quarter. App Store revenues, already known to be sizable, grew by roughly one-quarter over the past three months.

Though considerably outstripped by the App Store, Google Play revenues jumped massively last quarter. From Q4 2012 to Q1 2013, Play Store revenue grew by about 90 percent. Even given that growth, Apple saw more growth in absolute revenue.

The Play Store is quickly closing the gap with the iOS App Store in terms of total app downloads. In the past quarter, Play app downloads grew to about 90 percent of the App Store's total downloads.

The United States and Japan are the App Store's largest countries by revenue, but China has become increasingly important in terms of app revenue as well. In the Chinese app market, games are the top app category by far, representing roughly 90 percent of China's iOS app revenue, the highest seen across all countries in the App Store.

China has also been gaining momentum in terms of iOS app downloads, and the country was the leading contributor to iOS app download growth in the last quarter. The United States, China, Japan, and the United Kingdom together account for about half of all iOS downloads. For Google Play, the U.S., South Korea, India, and Russia make up about 40 percent of downloads.