US iPhone App Store spending per user doubled between 2016 and 2019

Even before the coronavirus outbreak placed us in self isolation, iPhone owners increased their App Store spending to an average of $100 per person in 2019, up 27% from 2018.

As Apple continues to grow its services, users are spending more money in the App Store on average and has reached a new milestone of $100 spent on average. This number comes from premium app purchases and in-app purchases, not including sales of goods like products from Amazon, or Uber rides.

According to data provider Sensor Tower, spending has grown over 200% since 2015. This is likely due to Apple continuing to increase market share over the years and the popularization of mobile gaming. Over half of the reported spending comes from gaming apps.

App Spending per iPhone; chart provided by Sensor Tower

The report goes on to break down each category of spending, including an increase in spending in entertainment apps like YouTube or lifestyle apps like Tinder. Most of the top performing apps use subscriptions for their monetization and reflect the popularity of that form of payment.

Subscriptions made up $3.6 billion of revenue from the top 100 subscription apps alone.

These numbers are impressive, but may be further overshadowed by the 2020 results due to the coronavirus outbreak. With everyone sheltered in place, digital spending is on the rise, and developers operating on Apple's App Store will likely see even more spending in this sector.