The subscription economy is helping to drive mobile app revenue by 2025, even as app downloads are down for the fifth year in a row, according to an app intelligence firm. AppfiguresIn 2025, global downloads of all mobile applications and mobile games via the App Store and Google Play are estimated to be 106.9 billion, 2.7% lower than the previous year. Consumer spending, meanwhile, increased by 21.6% to approximately $155.8 billion during the same period.
The data shows that app developers, marketers, and publishers have been successful in getting users to make in-app purchases or activate subscriptions, even though the number of new users downloading apps has decreased.
The report also describes the ongoing shift away from mobile gaming as the main revenue driver for the app economy. By 2025, consumers will spend $72.2 billion on mobile games, roughly 46% of all spending on mobile apps. While that number is up 10% year over year, spending on non-gaming mobile apps is also increasing. In fact, non-game app spending is growing 33.9% annually and will reach $82.6 billion by 2025, Appfigures said.
While consumers are unhappy that almost all apps now have in-app purchases or subscription models built in, this has provided a more sustainable path for app developers. Additionally, the shift towards ongoing payments for apps has helped the ecosystem of businesses serving the mobile app ecosystem. These include the RevenueCat subscription management platform, which raised a $50 million Series C this past year, and App chargestartup helping mobile games add their monetization, he announced a $58 million Series B back in August. This week, Liftoff Mobile, which helps market and monetize apps, filed for IPO.
As revenue increases, downloads decrease again in 2025.
After reaching a high of 135 billion in 2020 during the pandemic, downloads are on the decline. This year’s figure of 106.9 billion installs is down from 109.8 billion in 2024, and follows slower download growth between 2023 and 2024, when installs dropped 3.3%.
Mobile game downloads have seen an even bigger decline this year. In 2025, mobile games are expected to be downloaded 39.4 billion times, down 8.6% year-over-year, after a 6.6% decline from 2023 to 2024. Downloads of non-game apps are essentially flat – up only a modest 1.1% year-over-year, to 67.4 billion.
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The full report also looks at the US market specifically. Here, consumers spent an estimated $55.5 billion on all mobile apps, up 18.1% year-on-year from $47 billion in 2024. Downloads reached 10 billion, down 4.2% from 10.4 billion in 2024. US consumers spent $33.6 billion on non-game apps, up only 26.8% year-on-year, and $9 billion on games up to $26.8% year-on-year. 6.8%.
US non-game app downloads are expected to reach 7.1 billion in 2025, while games will be downloaded 2.9 billion times.