Nearly US$40 billion was spent on apps in the 1st half of 2019

SensorTower's latest report shows that a total of US$39.7 billion was spent worldwide on mobile-device apps in the 1st half of 2019 (1H2019). This amount exhibited a 15.4% year-on-year (YoY) improvement, as this figure was only $34.4 billion in 2018. As one might expect, the revenue was split between 2 platforms: the Apple App Store and Google's Play Store.

The Play Store took 36% of this 1H2019 revenune. In all, the App Store took in $25.5 billion, or 13.2% more YoY. That left its Android counterpart with $14.2 billion (a YoY increase of 19.6%). The highest-grossing non-game app on Earth in this half-year was Tinder, which took in $497 million across both platforms and posted an approximate 32% increase YoY in the process. Games also did well, with Tencent's Arena of Valor taking the top spot in terms of revenue with $728 million from both Stores.

It was not all completely rosy for apps in 1H2019, however. The total number of App Store downloads fell for the first time, by a total of 1.4% YoY. This downturn was attributed to the trade war and its fallout in the Chinese market. Conversely, Play Store downloads increased by 16.4% YoY, which pushed the overall global volume of downloads up to 11.2% compared to 1H2018.