2025 State of Mobile: Consumers’ $150 Billion Spent on Mobile Highlights Another Record-Setting Year

The mobile market is stronger than ever as we enter 2025, with a recovering mobile gaming market adding to the rapid growth seen in non-gaming. Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile 2025 Report reveals that monetization on mobile is only accelerating. In 2024, global in-app purchase (IAP) revenue across iOS and Google Play reached $150 billion for the first time (+13% YoY), the highest growth seen since 2021. This includes spending on in-app purchases, subscriptions, and paid apps and games.

In the report, we highlight how the latest strategies by app developers have fueled this growth and where there are still opportunities in 2025 and beyond.

App Revenue Soars as Mobile Markets Mature

More than a decade and half on from the launch of Apple’s App Store, the mobile market is beginning to stabilize across the globe. Downloads across iOS and Google Play were roughly flat year-over-year (YoY) at 136 billion. With the influx of new smartphone users slowing and with many consumers already having most of their favorite apps, we’ve seen downloads hover around 135-140 billion a year since 2020.

Meanwhile, people continue to spend more time on their phones than ever before. Consumers spent 4.2 trillion hours across iOS and Google Play apps, or roughly 3.5 hours per day per mobile user. However, there are signs that time spent on mobile is slowing as consumers in some countries experience digital fatigue. Globally, the 5.8% YoY growth in total hours spent was a bit below the 7.7% YoY growth in 2023, and time spent actually leveled out in several key markets including the United States, Japan, South Korea, and China.

As downloads and time spent growth has slowed in many of the more established markets, this has done little to dampen the potential for revenue growth. Revenue from in-app purchases and paid apps and games reached $150 billion in 2024 across iOS and Google Play – a staggering 13% YoY increase. Non-gaming drove most of this growth (+23% YoY), while gaming saw a nice bounce back (+4% YoY) following back-to-back years of declines.

Where are the best opportunities for monetization on mobile? The United States remained the leading market in 2024 with $52 billion in IAP revenue (or more than a third of the global total). Its 16% YoY increase also outpaced the worldwide rate, suggesting that there are still plenty of areas for growth in the market.

Europe, meanwhile, outpaced even the US in terms of revenue growth in 2024. IAP revenue across the continent climbed a whopping 24% YoY, or roughly double the global figure. This included strong growth in the region’s top markets like the UK, Germany, France, and Italy.

Mobile Gaming is Resilient

In 2024, IAP revenue from mobile games grew to $81 billion, up 4% YoY, reflecting the resilience of the mobile gaming market. This followed two straight years of declines, largely due to inflation and increasing regulations in the space. Most markets across AMER and EMEA saw strong growth return in 2024, though this was pulled down by lagging growth across the largest markets in APAC like Japan, China, and South Korea.

Downloads declined by 6% YoY to 49.6 billion – their lowest total since 2019 – as the mobile gaming market stabilized. Despite this, consumers are spending more time on mobile devices and increasingly making purchases, driven by enhanced gaming experiences and better monetization strategies.

AI is Everywhere on Mobile

AI apps are already a billion dollar industry, with IAP revenue in AI Chatbot and AI Art Generator apps approaching $1.3 billion in 2024. The United States is the clear top market for Generative AI apps in 2024, accounting for 45% of global revenue. The United Kingdom is second with around 4% of total revenue, followed by Germany (4%), Japan (3%), and Canada (3%). The genre is also quite popular in Brazil, which ranks #7 for Generative AI (and outside the top 10 markets by overall mobile IAP revenue).

The use of AI technology is also becoming much more widespread than chatbot and art generator apps. Fifteen different categories had at least 100 apps add AI-related terms to their app names or descriptions over the past two years alone, suggesting that apps across verticals are incorporating new AI features. This includes the expected categories like Productivity, Photo & Video, and Education, and various other categories across the mobile space like Lifestyle, Finance, Music, and Shopping. Mobile leaders like Duolingo and Strava continue to roll out creative new AI features to improve the user experience, and expect many more apps to launch new features in 2025.

Additional Highlights:

Read the industry's leading mobile report covering everything you need to know to succeed on mobile in 2025 and beyond, spanning 10 industries and more than 20 markets in a dynamic, interactive format covering:

• Connecting Mobile to In-Person: Many of the fastest growing categories connect users to their in-person experiences amid digital fatigue, such as outdoor health & fitness, grocery store, and restaurant apps.

• Mobile Gaming Bounces Back: Gaming spend climbed to $81 billion (+4% YoY) as Strategy, Puzzle, and Action fuel growth.

• Competition Spans Across the Globe: Retail is an example area of global competition with Chinese-backed Temu and SHEIN entering the space.

• Video Captures User’s Wallets: Streaming and Social Media apps saw rapid revenue gains despite slowing or even declining time spent growth.

• Cryptocurrency Apps are Booming Again: Improving macroeconomic conditions and higher Bitcoin prices helped fuel a resurgence in crypto apps to levels not seen since 2021.

Sensor Tower’s 2025 State of Mobile Report delves deep into regional and category-level market trends made possible by our  award-winning digital market insights platform. Claim your copy of the State of Mobile 2025 today!