Billion-dollar apps now in double figures as we spend more on apps than ever before

The number of billion-dollar apps has now hit double figures, according to the latest App Annie report. The number of apps grossing more than $100M last year is also well into three figures.

Americans also continue to spend more time using apps than they do watching TV …

App Annie has published its annual The State of Mobile report, and TechCrunch highlighted some of the more notable findings – including those top-grossing apps.

In the U.S., the COVID-19 pandemic’s lingering effects have forced users to shop, work, learn, game and entertain themselves from home over the past year. This led to “phenomenal” growth in consumer spending, App Annie said, as the market added $43 billion in 2021, or $10.4 billion more than 2020, equating to 30% year-over-year growth — higher than the global average.

At the high end of consumer spending, there were 233 apps and games that pulled in more than $100 million in 2021, and 13 titles that generated over $1 billion. This is up 20% from 2020, when there were then 193 apps and games topping the $100 million mark, and only 8 titles making over $1 billion annually.

Last year’s report showed that US consumers were spending more time using apps than watching TV, and the gap between the two has further increased since then.

The report noted the average American watches 3.1 hours of TV per day, for example, but over the course of the past year, they spent 4.1 hours on their mobile device.

This compares to 3.7 hours TV and 4 hours in apps the previous year.

And they’re not even the world’s heaviest mobile users. In markets like Brazil, Indonesia and South Korea, users surpassed 5 hours per day in mobile apps in 2021.

Across the top 10 markets analyzed in the study, the average time spent in apps topped 4 hours, 48 minutes in 2021 — up 30% from 2019. This included the averages from Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico, India, Japan, Turkey, Singapore, Canada, the U.S., Russia, the U.K., Australia, Argentina, France, Germany and China combined.

Unsurprisingly, app popularity varies by generation.

Here in the U.S., Gen Z’s most-used apps included Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Netflix. Millennials meanwhile preferred Facebook, Messenger, Amazon and WhatsApp. Gen X, which has now been lumped into the Baby Boomer demographic (ack!), used The Weather Channel, Amazon Alexa, NewsBreak and Ring.

Photo: Giorgio Trovato/Unsplash