Consumer spending on mobile apps across Europe reached $14.8 billion in 2020, according to Sensor Tower.
Moreover, this represents a growth rate of 31% year over year. Unsurprisingly, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic was cited as a major contributor to the impressive growth.
Last year, millions and millions of people were confined to their homes under mandatory confinement. So many have turned to mobile, especially games, as a form of entertainment.
Overall, the App Store has proven to be the most lucrative market as it generated around $8 billion in Europe last year, a 31% year-over-year increase . Meanwhile, up 30.8%, Google Play earned $6.8 billion.
On the downloads front, combined, the storefronts generated 28.4 billion installs across Europe. However, the Android store accounted for $21 billion with 19.2% year-over-year growth, while the iOS market grew 12.3% with 7.3 billion downloads.
Main countries
In Europe, the UK proved to be the most successful market as the country generated $2.9 billion across both storefronts, a 33% year-over-year increase. However, the UK was the largest revenue earner for the App Store with $1.9 billion.
Meanwhile, Germany was close behind with $2.9 billion on the App Store and Google Play. Moreover, it was the most lucrative country in Europe for the Android market with 1.6 billion dollars.
However, when it comes to downloads, Russia turned out to be the top country in Europe with six million installs, a year-on-year increase of 12.8%. Additionally, the majority of Russian installs, 4.9 billion, were on Google Play.
Turkey was in second place with 3.9 billion installs last year, but the UK proved to be the number one country for Apple as it generated 1.4 billion downloads on the App Store .
hey big spender
Overall, mobile games in Europe brought in $9.6 billion last year, a 28% year-over-year increase. As such, the category accounted for 64.8% of all mobile app revenue in 2020.
Worldwide, mobile games revenue in Europe accounted for 12% of total revenue.
In Europe, Google Play has proven to be the most lucrative gaming storefront, generating $5.4 billion in revenue last year, giving it a 56.3% market share. . Meanwhile, the App Store brought in $4.2 billion in the region.
Europe saw 12.5 billion installs last year on the downloads front, up 20.2% from 2019. Google Play took the lion’s share with 10 billion downloads in the region, while the App Store recorded 2.4%.
Overall, the Android market accounted for 81% of all mobile game installs in Europe last year.
Do you want to play a game?
In 2020, Moon Active’s Coin Master proved to be the top-grossing mobile title as it amassed $398.2 million from player spending.
Supercell followed in second place with Brawl Stars, which grossed $259 million. Meanwhile, PUBG Mobile by Tencent took third place in Europe with $253.5 million. However, the battle royale smashed $3.5 billion in lifetime revenue last September.
Playrix’s Gardenscapes and Niantic’s Pokemon Go closed out the top five games via revenue.
Meanwhile, State of Survival proved to be the fastest growing title with $165 million. The post-apocalyptic game has also increased on the downloads front as it recently hit 60 million.
In terms of downloads, Among Us reigned supreme in Europe with 64.7 million downloads across the region, more than 50 times what it racked up in 2019. However, the social deduction game also claimed the first place in the world with 264 million installations.
In November, InnerSloth’s title managed to hit 500 million monthly active users.
As for downloads, other notable games are Brawl Stars, Gardenscapes, Brain Test, and Subway Surfers. The latter has exceeded three billion lifetime installations.
