In-app purchase revenue from apps surpassed games for the first time in the second quarter of 2025, marking a major inflection point for the app economy.
Apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store generated $20.9 billion revenue in the second quarter, $300 million more than games. Game revenue has been mostly flat since the first quarter of 2023, while app revenue has increased 65.8 percent in that same time period.
App and game revenue 2016 to 2025 ($bn)
In comparison to the mobile game economy, with game developers continuing to rely on the same monetization solutions offered pre-covid, the app economy has changed significantly with the rise of subscriptions, commerce and in-app solutions.
Users have also become less fearful of making mobile purchases, which has improved the conversion rate for apps offering trials or one-month free promotions. In some app sectors, such as dating, cloud computing and video streaming, subscription prices have been raised without much push back from customers.
Add to that the growth of AI tools, such as ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, Suno and Perplexity, which have all generated over $10 million in 2025 according to AppMagic. ChatGPT on its own is the second highest grossing app of 2025 so far, behind TikTok, another app.
It’s not all doom and gloom for mobile games, which still generated over $20 billion in the second quarter. But the pendulum has shifted and, from the past three years of data, it is likely that apps will continue to generate more income than games.
