The global mobile application market slowed its growth in 2022. EConsumer spending fell 2% over the prior yearaccording to him annual report of the app economy by mobile analytics company data.ai, reaching 167,000 million dollars. On the other hand, meanwhile, downloads grew to 255 billion. This represents a growth of 11% year-on-year. On the other hand, users invest up to 5 hours a day in them.
In previous years, mobile gaming drove much of consumer spending on apps, but as subscriptions became a more popular way to generate revenue from non-gaming apps, that gap has narrowed.
One of the main features is that non-gaming applications have turned out to be more resilient in a declining economy. One reason is because consumers view apps as more essential than games. In 2022, gaming spending fell 5% to $110 billion, while non-gaming app spending rose 6% to $58 billion. Growth was primarily driven by subscriptions and in-app purchases on streaming platforms, dating apps, and short-form video services like TikTok.
Downloads of applications that are not games grow by 13%
Non-game app downloads grew 13% year-over-year to 165 billion. However, that did little to offset the drop in mobile gaming spending, with spending on app stores falling 2% to $167 billion. Figures include installs in third-party Android markets in China, where Google’s official Play app store is banned.
The market is facing new headwinds in 2023, with privacy measures recently introduced by Manzana it is expected to further empower app creators. So the company launched its app tracking transparency feature, which gives users a prompt asking if they want to be targeted by advertisers.
Although the data.ai report shows that consumer spending clearly took a hit in 2022, other areas of the app economy saw growth, including daily time spent per user, which grew a modest 3% year-over-year. to reach five hours per day in major mobile markets, or up to a third of daily waking hours, the firm says.
Among the top 10 markets analyzed, several exceeded five hours a day, including Indonesia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and South Korea. Meanwhile, time spent grew fastest in four years in Saudi Arabia, Australia and Singapore at 68%, 67% and 62%, respectively.
time in applications
Consumers tend to spend most of their time in three categories of appswhich accounted for half of the time spent on mobile devices: Social Networks/Communication (19.5% of the total time); Entertainment/Short Video (17% of total time); and Entertainment/Video Sharing (12.7% of total time).
The first Social Media/Communication category includes WeChat, WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger, Telegram, LINE, and Discord, while the Entertainment and Short Video category is where TikTok is found, as well as Kwai, Vido Video, Baidu Haokan, and Snack Video. The last category of entertainment and video sharing includes long-form videos like YouTube, YouTube Kids, and bilibili.
Mobile ad spending also grew 14% year-on-year to reach $36 billion by 2022, though data.ai warns that this growth will be affected by the economy. Short-form video apps like TikTok and YouTube are expected to drive much of this ad spend as social media platforms decline.