Mobile apps generated substantial global activity in 2024. Sensor Tower reported 4.2 trillion hours of mobile app use, 136 billion downloads across iOS and Google Play, and $150 billion in mobile consumer spending. Apple’s figures show the scale of one major app ecosystem: the App Store facilitated nearly $1.3 trillion in global billings and sales during the year.
Contents
- The size of the mobile app market
- How people use and discover apps
- What the App Store economy includes
- App Store supply, review, and safety activity
- Retail and mobile gaming
- The growth of non-game and AI apps
The size of the mobile app market
Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile 2025 put global mobile consumer spend at $150 billion in 2024. The same report counted 136 billion mobile downloads across iOS and Google Play and 4.2 trillion hours spent in apps worldwide. These are global annual estimates for 2024, and they describe the combined mobile market rather than one store or one category.
Apple’s Global App Store and Its Growth 2025 reported nearly $1.3 trillion in global billings and sales facilitated by the App Store ecosystem in 2024. That figure covers more than direct digital purchases inside apps. It included $131 billion in digital goods and services, $1,014 billion in physical goods and services, and $150 billion in in-app advertising.
The App Store ecosystem therefore extended well beyond paid downloads and subscriptions. Apple reported that it collected no commission on more than 90% of the $1.3 trillion in billings and sales it said the ecosystem facilitated globally. This distinction matters when comparing ecosystem billings with consumer spending measures from market-intelligence firms: the measures use different definitions and should not be treated as interchangeable totals.
| 2024 mobile app market measure | Reported figure | Source and period |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile app hours | 4.2 trillion | Sensor Tower, global, 2024 |
| Mobile downloads on iOS and Google Play | 136 billion | Sensor Tower, global, 2024 |
| Mobile consumer spend | $150 billion | Sensor Tower, global, 2024 |
| App Store ecosystem billings and sales | Nearly $1.3 trillion | Apple, global, 2024 |
| App Store digital goods and services | $131 billion | Apple, global, 2024 |
| App Store in-app advertising | $150 billion | Apple, global, 2024 |
Apple also reported long-term expansion in the ecosystem. App Store billings and sales rose from $514 billion in 2019 to nearly $1.3 trillion in 2024. Over that period, digital goods and services billings and sales increased 109%, while physical goods and services increased 162%.
How people use and discover apps
The App Store’s 2024 activity gives a detailed view of recurring mobile behavior. According to Apple’s App Store Transparency Report 2024, the store facilitated an average of 839,266,915 app downloads per week worldwide. Average weekly redownloads were higher, at 1,898,240,007. Automatic app updates reached 66,022,387,774 per week, while manual app updates reached 638,006,162 per week.
The store also reported more than 813 million average weekly visitors worldwide in 2024. On an average week, 440,896,463 customer accounts searched the App Store. Search visibility was concentrated but broad: 169,235 apps appeared in the top 10 results for at least 1,000 searches on an average week, and 1,377,468 total apps appeared in the top 10 results of at least 1,000 searches during 2024.
These figures show several different forms of demand. Downloads measure new acquisition, redownloads capture returning users, and updates represent ongoing maintenance of installed apps. Search activity adds a discovery measure, while the number of apps appearing in high-ranking results indicates the size of the competitive surface for app publishers.
Apple reported 1,961,596 total apps in the App Store in 2024. The store operated across 175 countries and regions, giving developers access to a broad international distribution network. Apple’s 2024 year-end charts were localized for users in more than 30 countries and regions, and App Store Editors recommended tens of thousands of apps annually.
What the App Store economy includes
Apple’s ecosystem total was distributed across digital and physical activity. General retail was the largest named category, representing $618 billion in App Store ecosystem billings and sales in 2024. Travel represented $135 billion, food delivery and pickup $110 billion, grocery $80 billion, ride hailing $60 billion, and digital payment $12 billion.
| App Store ecosystem category | 2024 billings and sales |
|---|---|
| General retail | $618 billion |
| Travel | $135 billion |
| Food delivery and pickup | $110 billion |
| Grocery | $80 billion |
| Ride hailing | $60 billion |
| Digital payment | $12 billion |
Apple reported that general retail billings and sales increased 162% from 2019 to 2024. Travel increased 137% over the same period. The broader physical-goods-and-services measure also increased 162%, while digital goods and services increased 109%.
The category figures are ecosystem billings and sales facilitated through the App Store, not necessarily revenue retained by Apple or app developers. Apple’s report also separates in-app advertising, which contributed $150 billion in 2024, from digital goods and services and from physical goods and services.
App Store supply, review, and safety activity
Apple’s transparency data also describes the scale of platform governance. Apple reviewed 7,771,599 app submissions in 2024 and rejected 1,931,400 submissions. After rejection, 295,109 app submissions were approved. Apple removed 82,509 apps from the App Store during the year.
Developer-account actions were also substantial. The report recorded 146,747 terminated developer accounts and 8,132 appeals of terminated developer accounts in 2024. Apple restored 225 terminated developer accounts after appeal. The report also listed 51,766,243 registered Apple developer accounts in its 2024 reporting context.
For app removals, Apple received 26,224 appeals and restored 42 app removals after appeal. These appeal figures are platform-reported counts for 2024; they should be read as activity measures rather than as an independent assessment of the underlying decisions.
Customer and transaction safety formed another part of the report. Apple said it terminated 128,961,839 customer accounts in 2024 and prevented $2,023,389,488 in fraudulent transactions. The report also listed 17 App Store Award winners in 2024. Together, these figures show that the mobile app market includes not only consumer demand and developer supply, but also review, enforcement, account management, and fraud prevention at platform scale.
Retail and mobile gaming
Retail apps were a major part of mobile engagement in 2024. Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile Retail 2025 reported 6.6 billion retail app downloads and 41.9 billion hours spent in retail apps during the year. These figures describe global retail-app activity and complement Apple’s broader ecosystem estimate for general retail.
Gaming remained one of the largest mobile categories. Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile 2025 reported that gaming spend climbed to $81 billion in 2024. Appfigures’ Mobile Games in 2025 reported $66 billion in global mobile game revenue for 2024, along with 126,000 new mobile games released during the year.
Appfigures reported that new mobile game releases fell 43%, from 222,000 in 2023 to 126,000 in 2024. It also reported average consumer spending of $1.52 per mobile-game download. The Appfigures revenue and Sensor Tower spend figures come from different research reports and definitions, so they are best used as separate reported indicators rather than added together.
The growth of non-game and AI apps
Non-game apps were an important source of recent mobile monetization. Sensor Tower’s Q4 2024 Digital Market Index reported global mobile in-app-purchase revenue of $39.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024. Non-game in-app-purchase revenue reached $19.2 billion in that quarter, up 28.2% year over year.
The quarterly figures provide a snapshot of the market’s end-of-year run rate, while Sensor Tower’s $150 billion consumer-spend figure is an annual 2024 measure. They should not be combined without a common methodology or time basis.
AI apps were another fast-growing segment in the Appfigures data. Appfigures Rise of AI Apps 2025 reported 115 million monthly downloads for AI apps in December 2024. It also reported more than $1.4 billion in consumer spending on AI apps during 2024.
The AI figures identify both reach and monetization: monthly downloads show December activity, while consumer spending covers the full year. That difference in measurement period is important when interpreting the two numbers together.
For the wider mobile app market, the 2024 data points to several simultaneous patterns: enormous ongoing usage, a distribution ecosystem operating across 175 countries and regions, strong physical-commerce activity, continued gaming scale, faster non-game in-app-purchase growth, and emerging AI-app demand. Each source measures a different part of that picture, with Apple focusing on App Store activity and ecosystem billings, Sensor Tower on global mobile behavior and spend, and Appfigures on selected app categories and releases.