Leading Brands in U.S. Business & Productivity Software: Q4 2024 Overview

Introduction

In the competitive landscape of business and productivity software, brands such as Microsoft 365, Gmail, and Google Workspace continue to dominate the U.S. market. This article explores their performance in Q4 2024, drawing insights from Sensor Tower's comprehensive datasets. Our analysis includes audience trends, app engagement, and advertising strategies, highlighting Sensor Tower's unique ability to cross-reference web, app, and ad data.

Microsoft 365 (Office 365)

Microsoft 365's digital ecosystem is extensive, featuring websites such as forms.office.com, microsoft365.com, office.com, and numerous applications including Microsoft Word and Microsoft Teams.

• Audience Trends: From Q3 to Q4 2024, Microsoft 365 saw stable audience numbers. Notably, office.com experienced a spike in visits, reaching over 817M in October, while others like onedrive.com remained steady with monthly visits around the 3M mark.

• App Engagement: Microsoft Outlook and Teams maintained a strong monthly active user base, consistently above 36M and 13M, respectively.

• Ad Spend & Channels: Microsoft increased its monthly advertising expenditure significantly in November and December, peaking at over $6.6M. LinkedIn was the dominant channel, delivering the highest impressions.

Gmail

Gmail's presence revolves around its massive user base, primarily through mail.google.com and the Gmail - Email by Google app.

• Audience Trends: The website showed a substantial increase in visits, reaching over 10.6B in October. The monthly deduplicated audience remained stable, consistently above 260M.

• App Engagement: Active user numbers for the Gmail app rose steadily, surpassing 138M by December.

• Ad Spend & Channels: Gmail did not allocate budget to advertising, relying instead on its established user base and organic growth.

Google Workspace (formerly G Suite)

Google Workspace's extensive offerings include calendar.google.com, docs.google.com, and apps like Google Calendar and Google Docs.

• Audience Trends: Google Workspace websites experienced varied trends. Notably, docs.google.com saw a peak in visits, reaching 5.8B in November, while calendar.google.com experienced a decline in December.

• App Engagement: Google Calendar and Google Docs maintained strong engagement, with monthly active users exceeding 39M and 23M, respectively.

• Ad Spend & Channels: Google Workspace's monthly ad spend peaked in September, with desktop video being the most effective channel, delivering significant impressions.

Conclusion

Q4 2024 highlighted the resilience and strategic prowess of leading brands in the business and productivity software sector. Microsoft 365, Gmail, and Google Workspace each showcased unique strengths across web and app platforms. Sensor Tower's unparalleled data insights enabled a comprehensive understanding of these trends, underscoring the importance of cross-platform analysis in navigating the digital landscape.

For more detailed insights, explore Sensor Tower's offerings, including Web Insights and App Performance Insights.