Apple and Google generated a combined $150 billion USD (about $215.67 billion CAD) in revenue from the App Store and Play Store during 2024, according to an annual report from analytics firm Sensor Tower. That’s about $285,000 every minute for the course of the year.
Consumer spending on mobile apps and in-app purchases reached new heights in 2024, growing a whopping 13% year-over-year to $150 billion. This was made possible by a resurgence of mobile gaming revenue (+4% year-over-year) and strong, steady spending growth on non-gaming apps (+23% year-over-year).
Not all of that money goes into the two tech giants’ coffers, though — Apple CFO Kevan Parekh recently denied claims of a 75% profit margin from the App Store during proceedings for a class-action lawsuit in the U.K. They do, however, pocket a roughly 30% cut of every purchase made through their app stores, a fact that has become the subject of several antitrust probes and lawsuits across the globe.
Apple and Google even take a hefty chunk out of payments processed outside their app stores. While the App Store and Play Store remain top dogs on mobile, third-party app stores may account for a larger chunk of global mobile app revenue in the coming years.
The EU has already forced Apple to open the iOS ecosystem to sideloading, and several countries are looking to follow suit. Granted, Apple is still going to get something out of apps distributed by third-party platforms, with the iPhone maker imposing a €0.5 fee per user per year in the EU.
2024 was a strong year for mobile apps, with global downloads hitting 136 billion. Time spent within apps surged to a massive 4.2 trillion, or roughly 3.5 hours per day per user. The U.S. was the largest market for mobile apps by revenue, accounting for $52.3 billion, but it was dwarfed by India in both total downloads and time spent inside apps.
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