5-Year Market Forecast: App Store and Google Play Spending Will Grow 120% to Reach $156 Billion by 2023

Global user spending in mobile apps on Apple's App Store and Google Play will reach $156 billion by 2023, according to projections based on Sensor Tower Store Intelligence data. This figure represents 120 percent growth from 2018 and a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.8 percent over the next five years. These findings are part of Sensor Tower's 2019-2023 App Market Forecast, out today. This post contains additional highlights from the full report, a sample of which is now available.

Both Stores Will More Than Double Revenue Globally

In addition to our macro-level revenue forecast, Sensor Tower projects that user spending on the App Store and Google Play individually will more than double between now and 2023.

Our projections call for global revenue on Apple's platform to reach $96 billion in the next five years, an increase of 104 percent over 2018's total of $47 billion at a CAGR of 15.6 percent. Google Play, by comparison, is projected to reach $60 billion in worldwide spending, up 140 percent over 2018 at a CAGR of 19 percent. In doing so, Google Play will tighten its revenue gap with the App Store, but Apple's platform will still command nearly 62 percent of all revenue generated by the two stores.

Latin America and Africa Will Lead Revenue Growth

Additionally, our forecast calls for Latin America and Africa to exhibit the most profound revenue growth over the next five years across both platforms. Global revenue on the App Store will continue to be led by China, the United States, and Japan. Meanwhile, Google Play's top earning countries in 2023 will be the U.S., South Korea, and Japan. The U.S. ranked No. 2 behind Japan for user spending in 2018, while South Korea ranked No. 3, signaling both countries' significant growth compared to Japan over the next five years.

Latin America is projected to reach $2.4 billion in user spending on the App Store by 2023, an increase of 239 percent over the $710 million we estimated was spent there last year. The growth in this region on Google Play will be even more pronounced, reaching $2.8 billion, up 408 percent from $550 million in 2018.

Our model projects App Store user spending in African countries to grow 296 percent over 2018 to $420 million, while on Google Play, our forecast calls for spending to hit $430 million in the region, representing growth of 406 percent.

Get the Sample Report

This is only a small portion of the insights available in the free version of our 2019-2023 App Market Forecast, available at the link below. The full version of this report is exclusive to Sensor Tower enterprise users. Find out more about the benefits of our enterprise market intelligence.

Click below to download our 2019-2023 App Market Forecast sample in PDF format: