Tinder, Netflix and Tencent Lead Record-Breaking Year for Apps
- App Annie’s 2019 report shows subscriptions driving revenue
- Games are still most lucrative class, led by microtransactions
Tinder, Netflix Inc. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. took the top three spots in App Annie’s 2019 ranking of consumer spending on non-gaming apps, underlining the growing importance of subscription services for generating revenue.
Games offering in-app purchases of virtual currency and upgrades, commonly called microtransactions, continued to lead overall rankings, with video subscriptions dominating the rest of the field. Even before the much-anticipated Disney+ and Apple TV+ services have taken off, Baidu Inc.’s iQiyi, Google’s YouTube and Alibaba Group Holding’s Youku all ranked in the top 10 apps by revenue. This comes in a year when App Annie said total new app downloads and consumer spending will both break records, judging from data collected from January to November.