Mobile App Economy Forecast 2015-2020 The Emergence Of A Mature Market

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The 20,000 Foot View

The global app economy is maturing. This transformation will bring a multitude of headline-worthy power shifts in the next five years. At the top, the share of global revenue will shift significantly between regions, as well as between platforms. Furthermore, the revenue mix will become more even between spend segments, as whales approach their full potential and free users’ monetization will experience its largest boom yet. The app economy has a positive outlook for the next five years as developments in trends of key metrics point towards solidification of the app economy’s foundations. But this transition period will bring new challenges as the target audience and the revenue mix start reflecting the more mature market. App economy stakeholders cannot rest on their laurels now.

Key Findings

• The global app revenue will reach        billion in 2020, up        from 2014
• Global app revenue growth will gradually slow from        in 2014 to        in 2020 
• Western markets will lessen in importance as Asia Pacific and Rest of World will account for        of global app revenue in 2020
• The growing number of available apps will negatively affect the app economy if app discovery methods do not improve
• Revenue growth of Low Spenders will reduce the app economy’s dependency on high spending ‘whales’
• The number of app buyers will grow        between 2014 and 2020, outpacing the free users’ growth of       
• App buyers will drop their revenue share from        to        and high spenders from        to        making the revenue distribution more equal between spend segments
• Revenue of Android will surpass the revenue of iOS as they reach        billion and        billion respectively in 2016
• Revenue from Free Users will be the fastest growing revenue channel as it will increase its share of global app revenue from        in 2014 to        in 2020
• Android will narrow iOS’ lead in average revenue per app download from        in 2014 to        in 2020.

Companies mentioned in this report: Apple, Google