Apple’s App store still leads the way in terms of global revenue, but Google’s Play Store is catching up, according to new research. Research firm App Annie reports that Google Play achieved 45% more downloads than Apple’s iOS App Store in the first quarter of 2014. However, Apple continues to still be “comfortably ahead” in […]
Apple’s App store still leads the way in terms of global revenue, but Google’s Play Store is catching up, according to new research.
Research firm App Annie reports that Google Play achieved 45% more downloads than Apple’s iOS App Store in the first quarter of 2014.
However, Apple continues to still be “comfortably ahead” in terms of worldwide revenue, the report found, generating a huge 85% more revenue than Google Play.
Key Trends:
• Google Play worldwide downloads now exceed iOS App Store downloads by around 45%, driven by growth in emerging markets. Russia and Brazil have been on the rise for some time now, but Mexico and Turkey also had a strong influence on Google Play downloads in Q1 2014.
• The iOS App Store remains comfortably ahead in worldwide revenue, generating about 85% more revenue than Google Play. This gap narrowed over the last quarter though, as Google Play revenue increased markedly in the United States and United Kingdom.
• China was the key market for iOS App Store growth, showing exceptional gains in both downloads and revenue. iOS App Store revenue in China grew around 70% quarter-over-quarter.
• Games remained the key category driving growth in both app stores. However, there was also growth in categories outside of Games. Tools saw gains in Google Play revenue, dominated by anti-virus and security apps. On iOS, Finance grew in revenue during tax season in the United States.
• Messaging apps remained a huge growth area, contributing to the gains for the Communication category on Google Play and Social Networking on iOS.
Key charts are shown below:
Methodology
App Annie’s Q1 2014 Market Index report includes data from over 150 countries around the world, examining apps on both Google Play and the iOS App Store. However it does not take into account Amazon’s Appstore.
View the full report here
