On Sunday, the much anticipated 95th Academy Awards ceremony takes place, highlighting buzzworthy artists like Michelle Yeoh and Austin Butler. The nominations for the Oscars, announced on the 24th of January, saw viewers rush to watch their favorite, now critically acclaimed movies. And streaming app Paramount+ saw the biggest increase in week-over-week download growth – 80%! – thanks to Top Gun: Maverick and Everything Everywhere All At Once.
It was one of the headline takeaways from data.ai’s State of Mobile 2023 report that there was a slight decline in direct consumer spending in mobile apps last year. The $167 billion total was 2% down from 2021. Inflation and other economic headwinds seemed to be the key factors here.
The effects of inflation are omnipresent. The mobile app market isn’t immune to them, and has, in fact, begun to show signs that the economic headwinds facing the business macrocosm are filtering down to the mobile microcosm, affecting publishers and apps of all sizes. Without a clear end in sight, this environment demands that those evaluating opportunities in the mobile ecosystem have a sustainable approach to surface insights around its most resilient aspects.
After soaring to new heights in 2020 amid a surge in consumer demand for entertainment and escapism, the mobile gaming space was hit by platform privacy changes and an overall decrease in engagement as real-world experiences became viable once more. Nevertheless, the category still represents an impressive 61% of all consumer spending in apps, a figure that would be even larger if accounting for in-app ad revenue.
The effects of inflation are omnipresent. The mobile app market isn’t immune to them, and has, in fact, begun to show signs that the economic headwinds facing the business macrocosm are filtering down to the mobile microcosm, affecting publishers and apps of all sizes. Without a clear end in sight, this environment demands that those evaluating opportunities in the mobile ecosystem have a sustainable approach to surface insights around its most resilient aspects. In our State of Mobile Apps During an Economic Downturn report, data.ai reveals how mobile performance data can illuminate a brighter path through these turbulent times for app makers.
Market concentration helps to indicate if only a few games (or publishers) dominate the majority of the market. This highlights competitiveness. Using Game IQ subgenres and breaking down by geography, we were able to highlight areas of opportunity and disruption to answer: Is the mobile gaming market dominated by only a few big players How can independent publishers break through the titans of the industry? Which regions are gamers most open to new entrants, new genres or new gaming mechanics?
Consumer needs for their health & fitness regimens continue to evolve and mobile apps play a major part in serving them. Downloads and revenue across Health & Fitness apps continue to grow into the summer, even surpassing the “New Year Resolution” spike in January 2022. As consumers dropped “New Year, New Me” and adopted ‘Everybody is a Summer Body,’ there is a clear opportunity for health & fitness brands to become embedded in people’s wellness routines and find ways to retain existing customers.
It’s known that millennials love their furry companions after it was confirmed that 58% of millennials said they’d prefer to have pets over human children. Even more, the same survey revealed of 1,000 pet owners that 57% of pet parents love their animals more than their siblings. The trend doesn’t stop at millennials, either. In 2020 70% of US households owned pets, an all-time high. With many seeking some form of companionship, people turned their attention to their fur babies, spending more on them than ever before.
This year, Ramadan ran from April 2 to May 1, 2022. This period of time is often associated with large shopping sales in many markets. We took a look at the latest mobile trends during Ramadan 2022. Similar to other religious holidays, Ramadan is also an important month for retailers. Many sales accompany the festivities. Mobile shopping took on an even more important role amidst COVID-induced lockdowns and social-distancing measures.
Games such as _Bridge Race_ and _High Heels_ have generated vast download numbers by removing virtually all the friction that would stop less committed users from playing. Hypercasual games are lightweight, have a scaled-down depth of content and progression and are usually free to play. This simplicity has brought millions of new gamers into the mobile gaming universe. The category scarcely existed before 2014 but in 2021 the action and puzzle hypercasual subgenres topped the download chart in 24 of 28 countries.
Heading into July, the US national average price of gas has surpassed $5 per gallon. Earlier this summer, we noted that one way consumers are striving to beat back rising gas prices is through the use of apps like GasBuddy, which saw 190% YoY increase in downloads as of June 2022. Now, amidst rising gas prices and concern over the climate crisis, there is a stark increase in demand for electric vehicles, according to data.ai’s mobile data. As of June 13, 2022 weekly downloads of the top 5 Electric Vehicle Charging apps increased 250% compared to the start of the year.
Our latest report unveils the State of Food & Drink on mobile with unprecedented granularity. Powered by App IQ, we dive deep into 7 subgenres including Food Delivery & Carryout, Ultrafast Delivery, Grocery Delivery and more. Our State of Food & Drink report uncovers nuanced insights publishers need to succeed in the new mobile-first food & drink landscape across 20 key markets.
Amazon Prime Day is returning this year on July 12-13, and previews of the online sales have consumers excited to take part in _Amazon’s_ biggest shopping day of the year. Although _the company_ has expanded the shopping holiday to new markets this year, US sales are still predicted to account for over 60% of all Prime Day purchases as American consumers search for deals amidst rising costs and ongoing inflation
A recent analysis from data.ai shows that the usage of travel and navigation apps has steadily increased since January of this year with app downloads increasing YoY amongst the top 5 travel apps in 3 different app subgenres — highlighting the fact that American consumers are eager to travel regardless of inflation concerns. In fact, more than 80% of American adults are planning summer travel. In addition, research from the US Travel Association found that Americans spent $95 billion on travel in March of 2022
BeReal is the latest innovation in social media — with over 10 million lifetime downloads to date (May 10, 2022). In Q1 2022 alone, BeReal saw 3.3 million downloads worldwide, up 390% from Q4 2021. Founded by a former GoPro employee, Alexis Barreyat, the French-based app was first released on iOS and Google Play stores in January 2020 and is focused on fostering ‘real’ connections, championing a return to simplicity and authenticity
The gaming community has been familiar with the concept of ‘the metaverse’ with ROBLOX being the largest mainstream example today — ranking #1 for global consumer spend on mobile in 2021 and garnering over $4.5 billion in app store consumer spend as of Mar 31, 2022 to date — a testament to its widespread popularity. However, the concept of the metaverse extends beyond gaming. While the idea of shopping, marketing, and interacting with others in a virtual world may not be mainstream yet, tech giants like Meta (Facebook) are seemingly leading the charge and consumers and brands in other sectors are quickly jumping on board
The mobile app has had a huge impact on finance. The underbanked want access. The rest want convenience. And the way people shop, pay, save, borrow, and invest has been utterly transformed by the smartphone. This revolution came in two stages. The first saw the arrival of mobile banking apps, which let people check balances, make transfers, and organize their budgets – all without the need to visit a branch. The second big innovation was in payments. With the emergence of contactless and QR code functionality, the phone became a wallet as well as a bank.
Since the US federal ban on sports betting was lifted four years ago, state governments have been slowly rolling out their own policies. As more states change regulations around sports betting, especially ahead of major sporting events, sports betting apps are seeing a surge in downloads. When Michigan and New York opened up online sports betting ahead of the Super Bowl in January 2021 and January 2022, respectively, nearly all major sports betting apps saw a spike in downloads.
The State of Anime Gaming in 2022, we use data.ai’s Game IQ Feature Tags to dive deep into the anime gaming sector — highlighting growing global demand. We leverage this view of anime art style in mobile games to unpack market sizing, subgenre trends, top performers and user preferences and demographic breakdowns never before seen on this scale.
2021 was a curious year for the travel app sector. Travel was hit hard in the previous 12 months, with recreational and business travel virtually halted all over the world. 2021 saw travel rebound back towards pre-pandemic levels, thanks to a combination of vaccine rollouts, natural immunity and governmental plans for safe reopenings despite new variants causing intermittent lockdowns and travel restrictions.
