Apple’s App store beats Google Play Store in revenue by miles

Apple’s App Store’s revenue is twice the revenue of the Google Play Store, a research by app-analytics firm Sensor Tower has revealed. In their half-year report, Sensor Tower has confirmed continuity of the norm of the App Store earning twice as much as the Google Play Store.

The App Store has generated $22.6 billion in revenue during 6 months while the Google Play Store has generated $11.8 billion. Collectively, the revenue of $34.4 billion of both the app platforms is 27.8 percent more than the first 6 months of 2017, wherein consumers spent a sum of $26.9 billion.

In relative terms though, the Play Store has seen improved growth over the App Store. Compared to the first 6 months of 2017, the App Store saw a 26.8 percent increase in revenue while the Google Play Store saw an increase of 29.7 percent. In terms of quantity, the Play Store saw over 35 billion one-time downloads while the App Store was used to download 15 billion applications.

One of the main reasons behind this is the availability of the App Store in China, which is a significantly large market. Lack of exposure to the huge market with billions of people is attributed as one of the main reasons behind the lack of revenue of the Play Store.

iOS has seen a number of apps introduced to the platform which aren’t available in Android. Just as an example, look at Fortnite. The game has been acknowledged and loved by people around the world; except people with Android Mobiles. Fortnite launched in March 2018 on iOS and generated over $100 million within the first 90 days! The game has been in the rumor mill for the Android platform for several months now but personally, I doubt the game will fare as well on the Play Store as it did on the App Store.

Generally, there is a trend of users spending low amounts on the Google Play Store and preying on freebies. Well, even if it isn’t the general case, it is certainly the case here in Pakistan. The requirement of a credit card for purchases doesn’t really fare well in the minds of consumers and that is a huge reason behind the lack of spending on paid apps on Play Store. I’ve observed that this is not the trend with iOS users, however, as a majority of them are actually comfortable adding their credit cards online in order to purchase games and other paid applications. What about you, do you buy paid apps or do you dwell on freebies exclusively?