App Annie forecasts $2bn spent in app stores

Australians are expected to spend almost $2 billion in app stores by 2022, according to App Annie’s latest forecast.

The report predicts that annual mobile app downloads will rise 45%, with 258 billion apps downloaded per year. Annual consumer spend in app stores will reach $157 billion, a rise of 92%; and average annual consumer spend per device will rise 23%, to $26 per person.

This growth stems in part from the predicted rise in the install base of smartphones and tablets worldwide, expected to jump from 3.9 billion units in 2017 to 6.1 billion by 2022.

APAC is driving nearly two-thirds of the global spend, with China remaining as the world’s largest market, hitting $62.4 billion, or nearly 40% of worldwide spend.

Australia will see approximately $1.8 billion in consumer spend through the app stores in 2022. This will likely place it within the top 10 countries by 2022. According to the forecast, Australia is in the ‘expansion’ phase of app market maturity. During this phase, consumers build an understanding of the types of apps that are most useful to them and therefore tend to search for new apps less often. Downloads remain high, but growth rates slow. In parallel, engagement and spend climb, as people use their preferred apps more frequently.

Australia is beginning to see these patterns. Download growth has started to stabilise, remaining close to 700 million total downloads in 2017 across Google Play and the iOS App Store combined. At the same time, consumer spend is growing dramatically — likely at an accelerated rate when compared to similarly mature markets, thanks to the high average income in Australia.

For the last two years, spend has grown by approximately 25% per annum, reaching over $1.08 billion in 2017. App Annie expects spend in Australia to grow by an additional 69% through to 2022. In addition, per capita, Australians spent 276 hours in Android phone apps in 2017 — higher than both the UK and Germany. Total time spent in Android phone apps in Australia increased by 27% in 2017 to reach 6.7 billion hours. App Annie expects this growth in engagement to continue for many years as the market continues along its path to maturity.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/AA+W

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