Mobile app spend and use keep rising: report

BASICALLY SPAM: Carriers will be able to post-install more apps on smartphones.

Mobile apps continue to grab users attention and cash from their wallets, with the average American spending three hours a day on their phones while consumers around the world spent US$76bil (RM317.32bil) on apps this year, reports app analytic firm App Annie.

Based on preliminary data through Dec 15, its market insights manager Lexi Sydow predicted that global downloads across both iOS and Android platforms will surpass 113 billion in 2018, up 10% from 2017. 

Meanwhile time spent on the smartphone increased 10% from last year, while the cash spend is a 20% increase from 2017. 

"This is fuelled by growing consumer spend in mobile games – the most popular and profitable gaming format – as well as ever-increasing revenue from in-app subscriptions in non-gaming apps," she said.

She added that 2018 has been a particularly good year for social video, hyper-casual games and battle royale games.

The top three most downloaded games were puzzle game Helix Jump, endless runner game Subway Surfers and online multiplayer battle royale PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Mobile.

Despite the poor year Facebook has been facing regarding data privacy concerns, the top downloaded apps were still Facebook, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. 

Meanwhile the top three games with most consumer spend were Fate/Grand Order based on the Japanese anime franchise, multiplayer online battle arena game Honor Of Kings and puzzle game Monster Strike, while the top earning apps were Netflix, Tinder and Tencent Video.

Virtual monster catching game Pokemon Go's popularity made a turnaround in 2018, placing seventh, while Pandora Music proved to be the mobile music app with most spending from customers, placing fifth among all paid and subscriber apps.