Statistics can often be skewed to serve a particular purpose, but new data just released about the relative numbers of downloads and amount of money generated by the Google Play and Apple iOS app stores make for interesting reading. The most obvious points from the above graphs, which are limited to the first quarter of 2016, is that A LOT of people are downloading apps on both stores, and that Google and Apple are generating A LOT of money.
So what do the numbers tell us? Firstly that there have been double the number of downloads via the Google Play store than the Apple app store. This data is presumably limited to apps and games, and doesn’t include information on books, music or video downloads. Nonetheless, it is clear that whilst only having half the number of downloads, the revenue generated by Apple is almost double that of Google. The other big aspect to all this, not evident from the graphs above, is that the opening up of the Chinese market has had a big impact on Apple app sales, and that other emerging markets (such as Vietnam, Argentina and Egypt) account for Google Play growth.
Exciting stuff eh!