iOS App Store continues to dominate the app market, overshooting Google’s Play Store in net revenue generated from app purchases, according to data from App Annie. AppleInsider reports —
While iOS App Store purchase volume may be losing ground from a marketshare perspective by number of downloads, Apple continues to dominate the market in consumer spending by a wide margin and still growing.
The surprising thing is that iOS App Store has once again generated more revenue than Google Play Store, even though the latter has a higher number of downloads.
As is clear from the chart, Google’s net sales numbers were more than double of that of iOS App Store last year. And this year, Google has not only successfully maintained that lead but also managed to increase it further. Meanwhile, Apple’s own sales figures have barely improved
And yet, even after this “average performance”, Apple has managed to outsell Google. Meaning that they have generated more revenue than Google by selling a lesser number of apps!
Some people might call this a one-time event, saying that Apple got “lucky”, except that they did the exact same thing last year. Clearly, Apple is doing something right with iOS App Store. Or perhaps, Google is just missing a trick!
India’s Contribution
India has been instrumental in the rise of Google Play app downloads. A chunk of its downloads in the past year have come from India, where budget smartphones, coupled with cheap data plans have created an app-download explosion of sorts!
For its part, India surpassed the US in 2016 to become the largest market for Google Play downloads. India not only held onto the top spot in Q2 2017, but it widened its lead as it experienced the quarter’s largest year-over-year market share growth of Google Play downloads.
It’s this immense potential of India that Tim Cook keeps referring to. And it’s this potential that Apple is hoping to capture. In the meanwhile, it is continuing to stock-up its cash pile with performance such as these.
