?? Where to Build for Maximum Profit?

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This week I aim to answer a question I get asked often. Should you developer for the App Store and Google Play or just one?

The answer always depends on your kind of app and goals, but what I can show you are the numbers, and have an analysis of revenue across the two stores which paints a pretty clear picture.

Can you guess what the numbers say?

In this newsletter:

1. The App Store drives majority of mobile revenue
2. The highest earning games in September
3. The most downloaded games in September
4. ChatGPT isn't the only AI app that's growing its revenue
5. The app that helped nearly 500K people during a hurricane

Insights

1. Where's the Money? Comparing Revenue on the App Store and Google Play

One of the questions I get asked most often is "should I build for the App Store and Google Play?". And while the answer is pretty dependent on what you're building, what I can do is show you how consumer spending is split between the App Store and Google Play and let you make the decision for yourself.

I used our App Intelligence to look at revenue of the top apps and games in September across the App Store and Google Play and broke it down further into categories because while the big picture is fairly consistent across the board, each category is just a little different.

Let's start with the obvious - there's more money on the App Store. If you've been reading my newsletter for long enough, this shouldn't come as a surprise, but the numbers might be surprising.

Our App Intelligence shows that in September, 16% of all revenue came from purchases on Google Play and 84% from the App Store. That's a really big difference.

That means that for every dollar spent through Google Play there are more than five spent in the App Store!

And speaking of dollars, we estimate that there were $16.2B of those spent by consumers on apps and games in September. Google Play contributed $2.5B to that total and the App Store the remaining $13.7B. Billions with a capital B. And this is all gross revenue, which means what users spent on in-app purchases and before Apple and Google take their fees.

So, if you're strictly looking for money, you may want to focus on the App Store.

Not All Categories Behave the Same

But let's dig deeper to see which categories generate the most revenue and which store leads there. To do that, I ranked all categories by how much money consumers spent in September and ranked the top 10.

And the winner is... Games. On the App Store.

Our App Intelligence shows consumers spent the most on games - $5.1B between the App Store and Google Play. $3.9B, or 75%, came from the App Store, so if you have a game the App Store is the place to be.

Fun fact - Games have the smallest share coming from the App Store when compared to all other categories except for one (Shopping).

In addition to Games, it's Entertainment, Lifestyle & Dating, Social Networking, and Photo & Video that make up the top five categories by total spend. The App Store is responsible for between 83% and 97% of the share across those. That's just wild.

Shopping, which is a tiny category in terms of revenue so it didn't make the top 10 (ranked #21) is the only category where the App Store's share is less than half at 42%. I'm not entirely sure why, but then again, most of the shopping apps don't monetize using in-app purchases so I'm not too surprised. I was surprised to see $30M in consumer spending in it!

There are many reasons to release an app across both platforms, but if revenue is your main goal, start with the App Store. That's what ChatGPT and Claude did, as do many other AI apps. There's a reason for that.

P.S. - The analysis is based on revenue of all ranked apps across each store, country, and category. In many countries apps that aren't ranked don't make any revenue, but in bigger countries like the US some apps are left out. When aggregating, those add up but when looking at individual app revenue it's very little which is why I analyzed revenue in this way.

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2. Monopoly Go Takes Over DNF Mobile’s Ranking Real Estate - The Highest Earning Games in the World

It’s that time again — time to set down our controllers, roll up our sleeves, and crunch some digits to discuss what happened in mobile game revenue during September. It’s clear from the rankings that the overall chart saw a lot of movement from August’s lineup , including a continued descent for one of 2024’s biggest releases. There’s more to share so let’s get into it.

While 王者荣耀 (Honor of Kings) remained comfortably on its metaphorical throne atop the combined mobile game revenue chart for September after retaking it in August, its first-place revenue total dipped 3% compared to the previous month, totaling $138 million, down from $142M. Who took that $4M? A very high roller.

That’s right: Monopoly Go! grew its net revenue for September by $4M over August to move into the #2 spot on the ranking with $115M. The last time we saw the game ranked this high on the list was in June, when it made $1M shy of last month’s income. October is a big month for the game; Scopely has launched a limited-time crossover with Marvel’s Avengers in a bid to attract new players and entice current ones to engage with — and spend on —the new content. Look for more on this next month.

Turning the topic back to mobile game royalty, Dream Games’ extremely successful puzzler Royal Match ascended to the #3 place on the overall ranking, up from #4 in August.

This meant in doing so, it pushed aside Tencent’s hit 地下城与勇士 (DNF Mobile), which was #1 in July following its launch in China. At #4, last month’s net revenue of $100M for the title is $23M or 19% less than in August and $43M or 30% less than July at the height of its post-release popularity.

Capping off the top five, 和平精英 (Game For Peace) actually moved up from #6 in August, growing its revenue 9% month-over-month from $86M to $96M.

Recent months have seen a steady climb in revenue for the top 10 earning mobile games worldwide, reaching $900M going to developers in August. That number grew by just $7M in September, reaching $907M for the month. Even so, there are still a couple of big months for mobile game spending left in 2024, so we may yet still see the top 10 net $1B monthly before the year is out.

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3. A Shakeup Sends Subway Surfers Back on Top - The Most Downloaded Games in the World

The estimates are in and September’s most downloaded mobile games have been revealed. And instead of another seriously static month on the combined chart, some among August’s top 10 placed better in September, while some slipped.

After two months of Offline Games topping the most downloaded ranking, it was time for a new (old) #1, Subway Surfers. Still, with overall downloads down month-over-month, the game actually saw 5M fewer installs in September than when it was #2 in August. That translates to 17M, down from 22M the month before. The endorsement that being the #1 game brings amounts to something, right?

Why use your phone for a grocery list when you can manage a supermarket on it instead? That’s the question millions of mobile gamers have been asking in recent months as Superstore/Supermarket Simulator has grown in popularity. Stocking its aisles with installs, it reached #2 for downloads last month, racking up 16M or only 1M less than #1.

Offline Games is still doing very well at #3 overall, but its 14M downloads last month are less than half of the 29M the reached at their height in July. Block Blast remained at #4 on the ranking, but accumulated 1M fewer installs than it saw in August at the same rank. Roblox, the #3 game in August, dropped to #5 last month, receiving about 3M fewer downloads in the process.

All told, the top 10 for September combined for 132M downloads — a 15M decline from August’s 147M, or 10% fewer. This was less than the 12% decline between July and August, which saw 20M downloads lost between the two months.

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4. ChatGPT isn't the Only AI App That's Growing its Revenue

When many think of an "AI app" they likely think of ChatGPT, which explains the incredible revenue growth the app saw in Q3 (but pretty much since release). And while ChatGPT is by far the biggest, it isn't the only one that's seeing revenue growing.

I was interested in seeing how apps that aren't built around ChatGPT are faring on the App Store and Google Play, and if users are really spending on them, so I tracked the revenue of Claude, which has its own model, Microsoft Copilot, which has a model that's derived from ChatGPT but isn't ChatGPT, and Perplexity, a search engine built around ChatGPT which in my mind is novel enough (and that's why I put the before).

Note: I didn't include Gemini because Google's rollout is pretty messy and isn't like any of the other apps.

This year, between January and September, consumers already spent $13.3M across the trio of apps, according to our estimates. It's important to note that Microsoft Copilot didn't start earning real money until May and Claude launched in May (and later on Android), so this total is not exactly descriptive.

Possibly more descriptive is September's $2.8M in consumer spending (aka. gross revenue) across the three, which grew quite a bit since May. In fact, revenue of the trio has been growing at double-digit pace every month this year. It's slowed down a bit as the total continues to rise, but that's pretty expected.

Our estimates show revenue rose 11% in September.

FYI - This is a tiny insight from our upcoming report on the state of AI and the opportunities it presents for app makers. Make sure you're subscribed to the newsletter to get the full report when it comes out.

Not All Apps Grew Equally

Of the three, it's Claude that's been growing the most. It beat both other apps in September with 22% month-over-month revenue growth. More than double Perplexity's (10%) and a whole bunch more than Copilot's (1%). It's still not earning as much as Perplexity and it just overtook Copilot, but I expect that to change by the end of the year and for Claude to top both and then start growing the gap.

But first it has to fill the gap. Claude trails the other two when we look at total spend, which is led by Perplexity ($7.3M), followed by Copilot ($3.6M), and Claude in last place with $2.4M. But looking at the trend, it's only a matter of months until that changes.

Keeping it real, I'll remind you that ChatGPT earns more 15x that EVERY MONTH. So Claude has a lot of chasing to do...

But what I'm more interested in is AI merging into search, aka Perplexity. The more I use ChatGPT the less I use Google, and I don't think I'm the only one. Once that trend catches on I'm sure we'll see more competition, including OpenAI's SearchGPT.

Looking at Perplexity's revenue growth, it's clear future of search is changing. The only question is who's going to be the Google of this new era.

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5. The App That Helped Nearly 500K People During a Hurricane

Even before hurricane Milton hit Florida, it managed to cause chaos. With so many people evacuating gas stations ran out of gas very quickly and potentially stranding thousands of motorists.

Short on fuel and with lots of traffic, looking for an operational gas station was less than idea.

Luckily there's GasBuddy!

GasBuddy helps users find the best rates for gas thanks to a massive community that keeps the platform updated in almost real-time. That came in handy a few weeks ago.

According to our App Intelligence , GasBuddy's downloads rose nearly 10x vs the daily average between October 7th to the 16th, peaking at 131K new downloads on Friday.

For context, the app sees around 5K new downloads on an average day, according to our estimates.

This peak is GasBuddy's 3rd highest since 2020!

We estimate that in total, GasBuddy was downloaded by 497K people across the App Store and Google Play in this period.

Said differently, GasBuddy helped nearly a half million Floridians in the last week.

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And that's all I have for you this week. I hope you've learned something new and please share the newsletter. Check out our App Intelligence to get ahead of your competitors.

Note: All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.