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Mobile users spend 2.3tr hours, $171 billion on apps

In 2023, across the App Store, Google Play, and third-party Android app stores, mobile users globally spent $171 billion on downloads.

This was disclosed in the latest State of Mobile 2024 report released by app intelligence provider data.ai. The report observed that the 2023 spending showed a three per cent increase when compared with 2022. It however noted that app downloads increased marginally by one per cent last year at 257 billion.

The data.ai report noted that consumer spending on non-game apps grew 11 per cent year-over-year in 2023 to reach $64 billion. Social apps and the creator economy drove this growth with TikTok helping to lead the way.

According to the report, the time mobile users spend on social apps on Android phones showed no signs of slowing, climbing nine per cent in 2023 to more than 2.3 trillion hours.

While consumer spending growth also remained strong at 13 per cent year-over-year to nearly $9 billion in 2023, the report observed that top social platforms are continuing to unlock monetisation strategies outside of advertising, with TikTok, the best app monetizer in the history of the app stores, as a prime example.

“Consumers are shifting their spending habits. Popularized by TikTok, they are opting to spend directly in the app via ‘tips’ to their favourite content creators, opening the door for subscriptions and IAPs,” Ai stated.

Data.ai noted that app owners capitalized on the artificial intelligence (AI) buzz last year to attract more users. According to the report, more than 4,000 apps added the word “chatbot” to their app descriptions, and more than 3,500 added “gpt,”. In addition, 2,500 apps launched in 2023 with “chatbot” in their description, which the firm said is nearly double the apps launched in the previous four years combined.

Other apps adopting AI features also did well in 2023. 20 apps that added such features saw 11 per cent year-over-year growth in downloads, data.ai found. 13 of the 20 (65 per cent) also saw positive growth.

The firm also cited generative AI advances as helping to fuel consumer spending last year.

The genAI app market expanded by over seven times, leading to new consumer experiences like AI chatbots and AI art generators. Top apps included ChatGPT, Ask AI, and Open Chat, in terms of consumer spending.

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