Sensor Tower and its recent subsidiary, data.ai, have combined their expertise to release the Q1 2024 Mobile Market Overview. This new report delves into consumer spending, app downloads, market trends, and mobile games performance in the first quarter of the year.

The report highlights a "strong bounce back" in mobile spending, contrasted with declining download numbers on Android. Q1 2024 set a new benchmark for revenue, with global consumer spending on mobile apps and games reaching $35.8 billion, marking the highest ever for a single quarter.

While mobile games alone didn't hit a new record, they generated $20.3 billion in Q1, continuing to dominate with around two-thirds of total consumer spending. This quarter also marked the first time in two years that mobile gaming revenue surpassed $20 billion, showing consistent quarterly growth over the past year.

Mobile game spending on Apple's App Store saw a robust recovery in Q1, rising by 6% to $13 billion. Conversely, spending on Google Play dropped by $100 million compared to Q1 2023, settling at $7.3 billion. Despite this decline on Google Play, combined spending on mobile games across both platforms increased by 3%.

Overall, game installs decreased by nearly 7% year-on-year to 12.8 billion. iOS installs remained stable at two billion between Q1 2023 and Q1 2024, while Android installs dropped from 11.8 billion to 10.8 billion. Together, these accounted for just over a third of the total 34 billion app downloads for the quarter.

The report attributes much of the decline to challenges faced by casual games in a highly competitive market. Despite new iOS downloads being significantly fewer than those on Android—less than a fifth—iOS users continue to spend nearly twice as much as their Android counterparts.

In India, overall app downloads fell 9% year-on-year, dropping below six billion for the first time in four years. This is a notable decrease from the peak of 7.8 billion downloads two quarters ago, now at 5.9 billion. The US also saw a decline, with a 4% drop to three billion quarterly installs.

While iOS leads in consumer spending, research from Tenjin and Clever Ads Solutions indicates that Android is the clear leader in ad revenue.

Source: adapted from an article by Aaron Astle, News Editor for PocketGamer.biz.