As the world continued to deal with the effects of the coronavirus outbreak, the second quarter of 2020 became the largest ever for mobile app downloads, usage, and consumer spending. According to new data According to App Annie, a secret service company in the App Store, the use of mobile apps increased by 40% in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the previous year and even reached an all-time high of over 200 billion hours in April. Consumer spending on apps reached a record high of $ 27 billion in the second quarter. And app downloads peaked at almost 35 billion.
The growth of app usage has been driven by social distancing and blocking measures as countries around the world try to curb the spread of the novel corona virus.
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For example, in India, the time spent on apps increased 35% in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the fourth quarter of 2019. Italy and Indonesia grew 30% and 25%, respectively. In the US, the time spent on apps increased by 15%.
App Annie says the average user now spends 4 hours and 20 minutes a day on their smartphones.
Credit: App Annie
However, consumers not only launch apps that they already have installed on their cell phones, but also download new ones. In the second quarter, consumers downloaded almost 35 billion new apps, an all-time high.
Google Play accounted for 25 billion of these downloads, an increase of 10% over the previous year. India and Brazil were the two largest markets for Google Play in the quarter.
Credit: App Annie
The number of iOS downloads rose 20% year-on-year to almost 10 billion. The U.S. and China were the largest download markets for iOS, but the U.S. and Saudi Arabia saw the largest growth compared to the previous quarter. The latter was probably attributed to a nationwide block and school closure that brought downloading of apps in the country to an all-time high in April and 100% year-over-year growth on iOS.
The games were downloaded at record levels in the quarter. App Annie notedA total of 14 billion games. During the first week of the second quarter, weekly mobile game downloads broke records above 1.2 billion, and weekly download levels remained an average of 1 billion throughout the quarter, an increase of 20% year over year.
Credit: App Annie
Non-gaming apps accounted for over half (55%) of new downloads on Android and 70% of those on iOS.
The top categories outside the games included “Tools” and “Entertainment” on Google Play as well as “Photo and Video” and “Entertainment” on iOS. However, other categories saw strong growth, including Business, Health & Fitness, and Education, where downloads from Google Play increased 115%, 75%, and 50%, respectively, compared to the previous quarter.
The iOS “Health and Fitness”, “Shopping” and “Medicine” apps showed strong growth of 30%, 25% and 20% compared to the previous quarter.
As a result, with record downloads and usage, consumer spending increased significantly, particularly with streaming video services.
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In the second quarter, consumers spent a record $ 27 billion on apps, up 15 percent from a year earlier to $ 17 billion for iOS and a 25 percent increase to $ 10 billion for Android.
Games accounted for $ 19 billion, up 15% from the previous quarter. Google Play saw significant growth of 25% qoq, double the growth rate on iOS.
Credit: App Annie
Non-gaming apps accounted for 35% of iOS spending. The U.S. and China made the largest contributions to both games and non-game apps for iOS in the quarter. However, the United States in particular took back the top position as the largest market for consumer games – a position previously held by China – with growth of 30% compared to the previous quarter in the second quarter.
Non-games accounted for 15% of Google Play spending. The United States, Japan, and South Korea were the largest markets for both non-games and games on Google Play.
The main Google Play categories included “games”, “social” and “entertainment”. According to App Annie, growth in the entertainment category was mainly driven by Disney + and Twitch.
On iOS, “entertainment” and “photo and video” along with “games” were the largest categories by consumer spending. Here TikTok drove growth in the “Photo and Video” category and became the world’s top-selling app in the iOS app store in the second quarter of 2020 thanks to the sale of virtual gifts that streamers use to tip.
Credit: App Annie
While much of the activity on mobile devices during the pandemic was related to having fun – such as watching videos or playing games – some of the quarter’s top apps were work-related.
Zoom, for example, became the number 2 most downloaded apps worldwide in the second quarter of 2020. Google Meet was number 7.
TikTok was the best app for downloads and spending and number 7 for monthly active users. This is likely to change in the coming months due to the ban in India. A proposed U.S. ban recently saw TikTok rivals gain ground. Amidst this disturbance Local competitors in India have seen increased usageand elsewhere, competitors like Byte and Likee have grown significantly.