Google Play increased its lead in Q4 2017 by downloads, still making less money than Apple's App Store

Thanks to the huge smartphone market, mobile apps are also incredibly popular these days, so the fact that they are generating billions in revenue should not come as a surprise. However, the fact that Google Play continues to lead the market by a solid margin, but still cannot beat Apple's store in terms of revenue is quite unexpected, especially if we take into account all the figures.

According to a market report by App Annie, "people downloaded more apps than ever before at nearly 27 million across iOS and Google Play worldwide, a growth of 7% year over year" in the last quarter of last year. Consumer spending also reached an impressive level, growing by 20 percent and reaching a worldwide amount of US$17 billion.

The most interesting part is the battle between Google Play and Apple App Store, because worldwide Google Play app downloads exceeded 19 billion, while iOS app downloads made via Apple's store did not even reach the 10 billion mark. This means that Google Play now has a lead over App Store of about 145 percent, claims App Annie's report. However, the App Store apps downloaded in Q4 2017 generated a total revenue of US$11.5 billion or about twice the amount provided by the Google Play apps downloaded in the same period (a lead of 95 percent, to be accurate).

All in all, 2017 was a great year for apps across both mobile platforms that matter these days. We cannot expect any major changes this year, but if you have any interesting predictions, do not hesitate to drop a comment below.