Q2 of 2014 is in the books and that means it’s time to look back at the app stats and see how well the Google Play Store did over the last three months. More importantly, we’ll take a look and see how it fared against the rival iOS in terms of downloads and revenue. Let’s get started.
1. Downloads
The stats
According to App Annie’s latest numbers, the Google Play Store increased its download numbers by 60% from Q1 of 2014 while iOS saw a 45% increase of theirs. The Google Play Store is up over 150 million downloads while iOS is hovering around 100 million.
The takeaway
Google has increased their lead over iOS in terms of downloads. App Annie attributes this to the explosive growth of emerging markets. More specifically, Thailand, Brazil, and India are largely responsible for the growth which shows that Android is doing better in emerging markets.
2. Revenue
The stats
Unfortunately, Google’s explosive download growth has not translated to the same amount of revenue growth. As per the norm, iOS continues to dominate the Google Play Store in overall revenue with about 80% more revenue than Google Play. iOS revenue is up about 45% from last quarter and has just over $100 million in total revenue while Google Play saw over 30% growth and around $60 million in total revenue.
The takeaway
Even though iOS actually expanded their advantage over Google Play in this category, the important stat is that both markets grew over 30% from last quarter. This means the emerging markets that have fueled Google’s growth in terms of downloads have also contributed greatly to their growth in revenue. Both Apple and Google garnered considerable revenue from Asia (namely Japan) but Apple ultimately ended up with the advantage thanks to their dominance in China.
3. Top countries: Downloads
The stats
The top five countries that contributed to Google Play’s downloads in Q2 2014 were the United States, Brazil, India, Russia, and South Korea.
The takeaway
Brazil and India have gone from emerging markets to download juggernauts in the Google Play ecosystem. Brazil holds its spot at number two but India has shown a surge of growth that has put them back at number three. You may be wondering why we didn’t post the iOS numbers and that’s because they’re identical to what they were last quarter. And last year, for that matter.
4. Top countries: Revenue
The stats
The top five countries that contributed to Google Play’s revenue are Japan, the United States, South Korea, Germany, and Taiwan.
The takeaway
Despite having very strong numbers in emerging markets, we see just how small of an impact the download surge has had on revenue. Despite seeing what amounts to a renaissance in app downloads in Brazil and India, neither country made a blip in the top five in revenue. At a glance this may be alarming but with emerging markets, the revenue will come over time rather than suddenly. It is worth noting that Taiwan is new to the top five and that Japan managed to make it to number one on this list despite not making a blip on the downloads chart. Again, we didn’t include iOS stats here because they’re exactly identical to last quarter and last year.
5. Top app categories: Downloads
The stats
The top categories in terms of downloads in the Google Play Store were games, tools, communication, entertainment, and social.
The takeaway
There isn’t much to take away here. These stats are pretty much the same from last quarter with tools and communications switching places. There really isn’t anything here that doesn’t make any sense.
6. Top app categories: Revenue
The stats
The top categories in terms of revenue in the Google Play Store were games, communication, social, tools, and travel & local.
The takeaway
Once again, there isn’t much to takeaway here. These are the categories where people are spending the most money. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that games is in the top spot.
7. Key takeaways
Here are a few of the big takeaways for the Q2 app stats.
- Both Google Play and iOS improved dramatically in app downloads from Q1 2014.
- Consequently, both Google Play and iOS improved dramatically in app revenue from Q1 2014.
- Google Play outpaced iOS in downloads while iOS outpaced Google Play in revenue. This is nothing new.
- Brazil, India, and Thailand are top dogs in the emerging market game with Indonesia and Vietnam not far behind.
- Games contribute the most to revenue and downloads on both Android and iOS.
- Japan is outpacing everyone in revenue growth on both iOS and Android.
- With Google introducing Android One later this year and focusing more on emerging markets, it’s clear that Google wants to put the emerging markets on the forefront of their growth efforts. Thus, we can expect countries like Brazil, India, and Indonesia to continue to grow by leaps and bounds.
There is still half of the year left to go and the all-important holiday season is still on the horizon. It’ll be interesting to see how everything pans out come Q1 2015.
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