- Tinder, Netflix Inc. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. took the top three slots on non-gaming apps in App Annie’s 2019 consumer spending ranking, demonstrating the growing importance of subscription services for revenue generation.
Tinder, Netflix Inc. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. took the top three slots on non-gaming apps in App Annie’s 2019 consumer spending ranking, demonstrating the growing importance of subscription services for revenue generation.
Games providing virtual currency and updates in-app purchases, commonly referred to as microtransactions, continued to lead overall rankings, with video subscriptions leading the rest of the field. Baidu Inc.’s iQiyi, Google’s YouTube and Alibaba Group Holding’s Youku ranked in the top 10 apps by revenue even before the much anticipated Disney+ and Apple TV+ services took off.
It comes in a year when App Annie said that total new app downloads and consumer spending would smash all records, judging from January to November data collected.
Tinder’s strong position shouldn’t be surprising, App Annie said, as these kind of dating apps “unlocked the keys to the monetization of subscription” and their combined annual revenue grew by 920 percent between 2014 and 2019, crossing $2.2 billion in the current year.. Facebook Inc. maintained its unprecedented lead on total app downloads, with Facebook Messenger, Twitter and WhatsApp standing for the sixth year in a row for the top three most downloaded apps worldwide. In September, Facebook launched its own Dating service.
By the end of 2019, App Annie said users will have downloaded 120 billion new apps across the iOS App Store of Apple Inc. and the Play Store of Google— without factoring in-app updates, re-installations of existing apps or Android installs that are achieved through unauthorized means. The figure reflects a rise of 5 percent over last year, and in 2020, the app-tracking company expected the record will be broken again. Every year, product revenue is said to rise at 15 percent, with 2019 projected to record nearly $90 billion, another new high.
On the gaming front, the Free Fire of Sea Ltd, the game that has already minted two billionaires, received the most global downloads, led by the PUBG Mobile of Tencent. Call of Duty: Mobile, another Tencent product, made it into the top 10 for the year, even though it was only released in early October. Sony Corp.’s Fate / Grand Order took the title as the most lucrative game of the year, followed by Tencent’s Honor of Kings and Candy Crush Saga from Activision Blizzard Inc. These three games are free to play from small purchases of in-game bonuses and updates, deriving their massive income.
In quest of the year’s biggest hits, App Annie highlighted Likee by YY Inc., a TikTok-like short video sharing app with the highest absolute increase in downloads throughout the year. Two more apps from the same company were in the top four: Noizz for video editing and Hago for social gaming, which, according to researchers, is especially popular among young users in Indonesia.
App Annie said it expects to see each of the current trends stepping up for 2020, with video-centric apps and subscription-based services growing in importance, ubiquity, and revenue.
User spending shows that people are interested in buying subscriptions and this will help companies grow their revenue through the apps.
