Google Play and mobile market forecast for 2025 – Sensor Tower report
A few days ago, we made an attempt to describe a report from analytics firm Sensor Tower. There, we focused on data more closely oriented around the App Store. Now we take a look at the app store from Alphabet Inc, the Google Play platform.
“In a previous episode”
The previous article touched on the structure of the report, hooked on the issues of growth in the aftermath of the pandemic and mainly discussed the potential market situation and what prospects are developing in front of the digital store of the technology giant from Cupertino. The most interesting mention is the highest growth rate in Europe, although it will still lag behind such players as the Asian or North American market, its growth rate may impress.
About the data – how Sensor Tower created the report
An important issue that organizes the whole context of data is the way it is obtained and analyzed. Sensor Tower’s Mobile Insights team has created revenue and download forecasts with its Sensor Tower Store Intelligence platform.
According to ST, the reported data reflects consumer spending on the Google Play and AppStore platforms, and download estimates are calculated using data from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2020. Market forecasts for 2021-2025 are the result of trends currently seen in the market, taking into account market and macroeconomic factors. Consumer spending is included in gross revenue. The revenue alone is the sum of the amount that the developers and the store get together. They take into account consumer spending (gross revenue). Android estimates represent revenue and downloads from Google Play Store only.
Estimates for the mobile market – Google Play
Sensor Tower claims that Google Play will grow by another 17 percent in 5 years. in the cumulative annual growth rate (CAGR), and the number of application downloads would reach 187 billion, the growth in CAGR will be almost 11,5 percent. In the United States, user spending over the next five years is expected to Increase by 14 percent to $23 billion, with estimated downloads in the number of More than 6 billion app downloads by 2025.
Regional consumer spending on Google Play
According to ST estimates, the largest growth in of consumer spending on apps will once again be the African region, being still the smallest market of all. From a level of $145 million in 2020, By 2025, spending is expected to increase by 320%, or to $611 million.
The largest market will remain the Asian market, which from $16.9 billion from 2020 will grow in 5 years by 104% or to $34.3 billion. North America will remain in second place, with residents spending $12.7 billion in Google’s store in 2020. This number is expected to grow by another 97% by 2025, to almost 24.9 billion. The spending of Eurasian Android users allows them to take the third position again – By 2025, they will spend just under $16 billion less than Asians, an increase of $11.6 billion, or 169% from 2020 to 2025.
When it comes to app spending by 2025, Saudi Arabia is estimated at $1.5 billion (+150%), Australia is at $1.8 billion (+168%), and for South America the amount will increase by 215%, or to $3 billion.
Asian App Store download rate
The report does not include China in the results. Instead, he calculates that the number of downloads in Google’s store in 2025 could be as high as 103 billion in Asia. In 2021, the recorded level of app downloads is 8 billion more than in 2020, where 58 billion applications have been downloaded. In the next year it is expected to be already 68 billion downloads, in two years this result will increase by another 10 billion, and in 2024 this number will increase to 90 billion! The implication is that the trend is upward, with year-over-year downloads expected to grow by roughly 10 billion per year.
The set of countries most beneficial to Alphabet Inc.
When it comes to the period until 2025, the most profitable countries without any changes in the podium places will be, in turn:
- United States of America,
- Japan,
- Korea, South,
- Germany,
- United Kingdom.
The report indicates that Google Play revenue growth in the U.S. and Japan accelerated in 2020, where in the U.S. this is coincident with the development of the pandemic, during which spending on mobile apps, especially games, increased, which will remain high due to continued time spent at home due to the coronavirus.
Share of category data in Google Play revenue
The report shows Continued growth in the share of games in Google Play revenue. It is expected to be as high as $60 billion in four years, up from $25 billion just two years ago.
However, the share of games in users’ interests will gradually decrease in favour of other types of applications. Games, on the other hand, are expected to drop from 85% in 2019 to 71% in 2025. This decrease is done in favor of increases against applications other than in the App Store, where they were photos, entertainment, social networks, books and music. On Google Play they are as follows:
- social media and entertainment (similar to AS),
- comics,
- productivity,
- health and physical activity.
For example, in 2025, the share of apps such as comic is expected to be as high as 4 percent, which is 3 percent. growth over those six years.
It is estimated that user spending in the mobile market will grow relentlessly. Google Play’s revenue from apps other than games is expected to be around $24.7 billion. The market share of the download category will be much more stable than it is now for revenue. Non-games are projected to account for about 29% of downloads on Google Play by 2025.
Sensor Tower conclusions
The reporting conclusion is the same as last time. Spending on mobile apps is estimated to continue to grow as downloads increase. Also seeing the impact of the pandemic on the market, though not at all as negatively as the rest of the industry. Also in Google Play the revenues from outside the game industry will increase, but they will not be as significant as in the case of App Store. In Apple’s store the number of non-game applications is expected to surpass games already in 2024, and in Google’s store even in 2025 the share of games will be over 70% of all downloaded applications. Major markets will continue to grow, though for Google Play the changes will be cosmetic – only the revenue from the major players will change, though Thailand, which ranked 10th this year, and the Philippines, which will rank 10th in 2025, will start to come to the fore. Europe is and will continue to be a very developing market for a store from Google.