Consumer apps surpass gaming “for the first time” — the nuance behind the numbers

Over recent years, consumer app revenue has been growing faster than gaming revenue, a trend that became particularly pronounced post-COVID as gaming revenue stalled. This shift, highlighted by various reports, is more nuanced than it appears, with significant regional differences; for example, non-gaming app revenue surpassed gaming in the US and India, while countries like South Korea and Japan still heavily favor gaming. The app market is also characterized by a power-law distribution, where a small percentage of top publishers, mainly in Social & Entertainment, dominate revenue. Furthermore, revenue figures are often estimates and do not account for in-app advertising or off-store monetization, which has been rapidly growing in both gaming and non-gaming sectors. This trend of non-gaming growth is thus real but complex, with many factors influencing the apparent shift in app revenue dominance.