Mobile apps have been a key part of our digital lives. Technology has pretty much enslaved the whole world, as we have become completely dependent on our smartphones for the smallest of tasks. Consumer spending on mobile apps has grown significantly, mostly due to the current pandemic. For the greater part of 2020, consumers have spent over $50 billion worldwide on the App Store, and Google Play combined.
The pandemic has had a clear impact on the buying pattern of consumers. While the quarantine kept people indoors, they shifted towards these apps for comfort and joy. We can see a steep rise in downloads of social networking apps, online communication apps, and games amid lockdowns.
The events of 2020 have shown that mobile technology plays a crucial role in maintaining a sustainable society in quarantine and forced isolation. Moreover, the IT market will have a longer-term impact after COVID-19 ends. Therefore, it is important to analyze and follow current trends in mobile development. This will not only allow you to stay afloat, but also increase your profits. Check which mobile development trends of 2021 will help you get closer to perfection faster than your competitors and win the hearts of users.
In this article, I am going to present a brief rundown of apps that did the most business during 2020.
Top Grossing Apps by Revenue
Talking in terms of mere revenue, there are a lot of apps that profited and suffered losses from the 2020 lockdown restrictions. It is estimated that Tinder, the famed online dating app, is the highest grossing app worldwide in the first half of 2020 as it made $433 million across both the Apple app store and Google Play.
However, when you compare it with the past year, the number represents a 19% decrease in revenue. It is very surprising to see that despite the lockdown, Tinder topped the list of highest grossing apps. Tinder was followed by YouTube and TikTok, both of which made an estimated $431 million and $421 million, respectively.
Top Grossing Apps by Downloads
When we take downloads into account, we can see a huge difference in the list. In the first half of the year 2020, TikTok was the most downloaded app, with over 626 million downloads.
However, the number has slowly started to decrease as several countries, including India, have banned TikTok. The number two and three apps on the list were WhatsApp and Zoom, respectively, which gives a clear indication of the rapid shift to work-from-home.
The rest of the list is dominated by social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Snapchat, etc. Where there has been an increase in social media app usage, there have also been some privacy issues. For example, SMS Trackers is an Android app that lets you track someone’s Facebook messages.
Top Grossing Games Worldwide
If there is one industry that benefited from the current pandemic the most, it’s the gaming industry. When you look at the statistics, the mobile gaming market grew a whopping 43% in the first half of 2020, which is one of the highest jumps in the app market. There has been a huge rise in gaming app downloads compared to the past year.
Tencent’s PUBG Mobile beat every other game in the market in terms of revenue and downloads. The first person battle royale pulled in roughly $1.3 billion across both Apple and Android stores, with over 734 million downloads in the first half of 2020. PUBG mobile was followed by Honor of Kings, which generated a revenue of roughly $1 billion.
The Bottom Line
We can see a very clear impact of COVID-19 on the app industry during the first year of 2020. The growth of the gaming industry, coupled with the increase in the use of mobile communication apps like Zoom and WhatsApp, is in line with the current lockdown restrictions.
As we move further into 2020, the data reveals that these numbers will jump by 42.5% between June 2020 and June 2021. This is a very sizable increase from the 20% growth between the years 2018 and 2019.
