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Apple’s App Store saw 164 publishers generate $1M in 2018, nearly double than Google’s Play Store

New data from SensorTower today reveals 164 publishers generated their first million dollars in net revenue during 2018, an approximately 13% increase from 143 in 2017.

The interesting data point arises when comparing to Google’s Play Store, who saw 71 publishers last year net one million dollars, and just 88 in 2018.

Considering iOS accounts for less than a quarter of mobile operating systems globally with Android generally dominating the remainder, it’s further demonstration of how lucrative iOS app revenue is compared to Android.

Though Apple holds a significant lead over Google in generating millionaires through each others respective app stores, Apple only saw a roughly 13% percent increase over Android’s 20% YoY increase in publishers generating $1M. Perhaps a sign of growing revenues from Google’s Play Store.

Earlier today, we reported on how mobile advertising is a booming business, with profits expected to grow healthily through 2020. A key factor that played into this was increasing app installs. We can presume the same holds true here.

SensorTower also reports a significant reason for the growing revenues pertains to in-app purchases. More specifically, subscription based ones.

While mobile gaming has been steadily on the rise, lifestyle and fitness related apps exhibited the greatest YoY growth.

Both of the categories with the greatest year-over-year growth in terms of numbers among new million-dollar publishers—Lifestyle and Health & Fitness—were ones where there is a strong focus on generating revenue through in-app subscriptions, whether it be from fitness tracking, guided meditation, premium dating services, etc

Randy Nelson, SensorTower via Business Insider

As you can see from the charts provided by SensorTower, gaming is significantly more important on the Google Play Store than it is on Apple’s App Store, accounting for nearly double the revenue as compared to Apple.

Are you subscribed to a recurring in-app subscription? If so, which ones? Let us know in the comments below!


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