Apple's App Store again dominates Google Play in Christmas revenue

On Christmas Day 2020, iPhone and iPad owners spent record-setting amounts on apps, with the App Store seeing a 35.2% rise over 2019.

Market intelligence firm SensorTower released its data on app store spending, showing a record-breaking $407.6 million spent across both Apple's App Store and Google Play — a 34.5% year-over-year improvement. Like in previous years, the App Store led the way, taking in $278.6 million and making up 68.4% of total earnings.

Gaming was the top category, both globally and in the U.S. The firm estimates that consumers spent $295.6 million on mobile games across both platforms this Christmas, a 27% boost over Christmas 2019. Tencent's Honor of Kings was the top-grossing game globally, while Roblox was America's top game.

Entertainment apps generated $19.3 million in the App Store, making up 21.8% of all non-gaming spending. Globally, TikTokwas the highest-earning non-gaming app, taking in $4.7 million on Christmas. Disney+ was the top earner in the U.S., with $2.6 million.

Christmas 2020 mobile-app spending

Google Play took in $129 million in revenue, up more than 33 percent from 2019 and tallying 32% of the total.

2020 has been a record-shattering year for mobile-app spending as families stay at home during COVID-19 lockdowns. SensorTower says annual global app spending passed $100 billion for the first time in November.

2 Comments

genovelle 16 Years · 1481 comments

About 3 years ago

This is why the greedy developers are so stupid to me. Apple’s success comes from making smart investments and maintaining a certain profit margin. Products or Services that detract from that get deprecated and die on the vine. There is reason Apple makes more money in their store with the same terms as Google, even though Google activates more devices. They invest in a market their platform heavily, so users spend far more money on the App Store. Apple also can control piracy. The policies these idiots want are what makes the Google Play store unprofitable for them and Google.

Why buy it when you can get it for free somewhere else? At the end of the day if Apple’s input wasn’t valuable, just go to Google and make your money. Let Apple suffer with no sales.

muthuk_vanalingam 8 Years · 1371 comments

About 3 years ago

genovelle said:

This is why the greedy developers are so stupid to me. Apple’s success comes from making smart investments and maintaining a certain profit margin. Products or Services that detract from that get deprecated and die on the vine. There is reason Apple makes more money in their store with the same terms as Google, even though Google activates more devices. They invest in a market their platform heavily, so users spend far more money on the App Store. Apple also can control piracy. The policies these idiots want are what makes the Google Play store unprofitable for them and Google.
Why buy it when you can get it for free somewhere else? At the end of the day if Apple’s input wasn’t valuable, just go to Google and make your money. Let Apple suffer with no sales.

Google play store unprofitable??? - Did you even read the article?