data.ai has highlighted five key statistics from the mobile landscape offering immediate insight "at a glance", as part of a broader overview of the industry in the State of Mobile 2024 report.
First and foremost, a total of 257 billion app installs took place in 2023, meaning over 489,000 were downloaded every single minute of the year.
Secondly, $325,000 were spent every minute too, accumulating into $171 billion of in-app spending in 2023.
The third key finding from data.ai is a 6% rise in time spent on apps, up to 5 hours per day on average based on the top 10 mobile-first markets analysed. On Android alone, this meant 14 billion hours were spent on phones every day and a magnitudinous 5.1 trillion hours across 2023.
Fourthly mobile ad spend saw a rise too, up 8% year-on-year to $362 billion. This made spending on mobile ads a larger economy than all economies of countries like Finland, Columbia and New Zealand.
And finally…
And wrapping it up, it was actually non-gaming apps that underpinned the year’s success, increasing in revenues 20 times over since 2014, and generating $64 billion last year alone. Growth still took place on the gaming side, though at a much slower rate. RPGs came out on top with an incredibly impressive 30% of total mobile game revenues despite only representing 3% of downloads.
Lexi Sydow, data.ai’s director of corporate marketing and insights, summed up the report for us. "Mobile gaming demand remained high at 88 billion downloads in 2023. While global spend dropped 2% YoY to $107 billion, outside of China, spend remained steady year over year, a positive sign from the dip in 2022. Gaming remains 2.5x larger than home console or PC/Mac spending.
"2023 saw blockbuster releases. Monopoly GO, Royal Match, Honkai: Star Rail and Whiteout Survival topped the breakout charts for consumer spend. Royal Match made significant inroads into the Match genre, previously dominated by Candy Crush Saga. Social elements became even more important in mobile gameplay as mobile dominated the gaming landscape."
Among data.ai’s broader mobile observations, the analyst noted the influence of generative AI, chatbots and art generators in 2023, but an increasing demand for real-world experiences at the same time - "phones in tow". Entertainment apps saw double-digit growth, with three trillion hours watched in 2023, explaining how the UK’s video market has outpaced gaming.
