App market size by app category in 2025
The global app market reached 110.5B app downloads and $150.5B in app revenue in 2025, according to AppTweak’s Market Intelligence category-level data combining the App Store and Google Play. These figures represent total demand and consumer spend across all major app categories and both app stores, providing a consistent baseline for evaluating category scale, concentration, and growth dynamics.
Looking at the market through a category lens reveals clear structural differences between where users download apps and where they spend money. Entertainment and Games emerged as the two largest app categories by scale, together accounting for a significant share of global app activity. At the same time, app revenue remained far more concentrated than downloads, with monetization-heavy categories capturing a disproportionate share of total consumer spend.
This report breaks down the app market size by category in 2025, ranking categories by downloads and revenue, analyzing growth patterns, and highlighting how demand and monetization differ across app verticals.
Key Takeaways
- The global app market reached 110.5B downloads and $150.5B in app revenue in 2025, combining data from the App Store and Google Play.
- Games and Entertainment were the two largest app categories by downloads, together accounting for a substantial share of total global downloads.
- Games generated the most app revenue overall, reflecting the category’s strong monetization dynamics despite fragmented demand across genres.
- App revenue was far more concentrated than app downloads, with the top revenue categories capturing a disproportionate share of total consumer spend.
- Productivity apps stood out for app revenue growth, combining steady download expansion with rapidly increasing consumer spend.
- Several large categories showed flat or declining app download growth, highlighting maturity even at high scale.
About the data
- Data source: Category-level app performance data
- Stores covered: App Store + Google Play
- Time period: January 1, 2025 – December 31, 2025
- Metrics analyzed: app downloads and app revenue
- Last updated: January 2026
Methodology notes
- All figures in this report combine App Store and Google Play data to reflect total category performance across both platforms.
- Games are treated as a single aggregated category, rather than split into individual genres, to ensure consistency and comparability at the category level.
- App category totals are calculated by aggregating store-level data (e.g., App Store + Google Play) for each category.
- App market share figures are calculated relative to total app downloads (110.5B) and total app revenue ($150.5B).
- Growth rates reflect year-over-year change in monthly averages for app downloads and revenue.
The top app categories by app download volume in 2025
The table below ranks app categories by total app downloads in 2025, combining app downloads from both the App Store and Google Play.
| App category | App downloads | Share of total downloads | YoY download growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Games | 33.0B | 29.9% | −6% |
| Entertainment | 10.1B | 9.1% | +14.0% |
| Finance | 6.7B | 6.0% | +0.0% |
| Productivity | 6.0B | 5.4% | +19.2% |
| Shopping | 5.8B | 5.2% | +0.0% |
| Social | 4.6B | 4.2% | −0.9% |
| Tools | 3.9B | 3.6% | −12.9% |
| Photo & Video | 3.5B | 3.2% | +5% |
| Health & Fitness | 3.3B | 3.0% | +4% |
| Travel | 2.9B | 2.6% | +7% |
Source: AppTweak Market Intelligence | App Store & Google Play | January 2025 – December 2025 | Global.
App downloads by top app categories in 2025 at a glance
- Games accounted for nearly 1 in 3 app downloads globally, maintaining their position as the largest category by user acquisition.
- Entertainment remained the largest non-game app category, driven by sustained demand for video streaming and media consumption.
- Productivity combined scale with momentum, posting the strongest app download growth among major categories.
- Several utility-driven app categories showed declining downloads, signaling saturation rather than contraction.
More detailed insights can be found in our app downloads by app category in 2025 article.
The top app categories by app revenue in 2025
App revenue rankings tell a very different story. While app downloads are distributed across many categories, consumer spend is heavily concentrated in a smaller set of app verticals.
| App category | App revenue | Share of total revenue | YoY revenue growth |
| Games | $73.5B | 48.8% | +3% |
| Entertainment | $19.5B | 13.0% | +22.0% |
| Productivity | $9.1B | 6.0% | +79.3% |
| Photo & Video | $8.8B | 5.8% | +29.6% |
| Social | $6.2B | 4.1% | +12% |
| Lifestyle | $5.4B | 3.6% | +9% |
| Health & Fitness | $4.9B | 3.3% | +11% |
| Dating | $4.6B | 3.1% | +5% |
| Education | $3.8B | 2.5% | +18% |
| Finance | $0.4B | 0.3% | +6% |
Source: AppTweak Market Intelligence | App Store & Google Play | January 2025 – December 2025 | Global.
App revenue by top app categories in 2025 at a glance
- Games alone generated nearly half of total app revenue, underscoring their unmatched monetization power.
- Entertainment ranked #2 by revenue, combining large-scale adoption with strong spending.
- The top 10 categories captured ~60% of total app revenue, highlighting significant revenue concentration.
- Several mid-scale app categories outperformed larger ones in revenue efficiency.
App download scale vs. monetization intensity
One of the clearest signals in the 2025 app market is the widening gap between app download scale and revenue generation.
- Finance apps ranked #2 by downloads but contributed less than 0.5% of total app revenue, reflecting low direct monetization.
- Productivity apps generated 6.0% of total revenue on 5.4% of downloads, driven by subscription-led monetization.
- Games generated nearly half of all app revenue on less than one-third of total downloads, underscoring their exceptional revenue per download.
This dynamic reinforces why app category opportunity cannot be evaluated on app downloads alone.
Growth trends shaping app categories in 2025
1. Productivity became a revenue growth outlier
Productivity apps recorded nearly 80% YoY revenue growth in 2025. This surge is consistent with broader subscription-market dynamics, including higher subscription adoption in habitual-use categories and evolving monetization models (subscriptions mixed with other purchase types).
2. Entertainment continued to scale across both demand and spend
Entertainment remained the largest category by app downloads and revenue in the dataset, aligning with wider reporting that streaming and social apps saw strong revenue gains.
3. Games remained dominant but showed moderating growth
Games continued to anchor the app economy, but app download growth moderated in 2025, reflecting increasing competition and market maturity across genres.
Conclusion
The app market in 2025 reached unprecedented scale, with 110.5B app downloads and $150.5B in consumer spend across the App Store and Google Play. Category-level analysis reveals a market where user attention is widely distributed, but revenue is tightly concentrated.
Games and Entertainment remain the foundational pillars of the app economy, while Productivity stands out as the fastest-evolving monetization story. As growth slows across several large categories, future gains will depend less on raw acquisition and more on retention, pricing, and value expansion.
Understanding app market size by category is no longer just about identifying the biggest segments, it’s about recognizing where scale, growth, and monetization intersect.
FAQs
What was the total app market size in 2025?
The app market reached 110.5B downloads and $150.5B in app revenue across the App Store and Google Play in 2025.
Which app category had the most app downloads in 2025?
Games were the largest app category by downloads in 2025, accounting for nearly 30% of total global app downloads.
Which app category generated the most app revenue in 2025?
Games generated the most app revenue in 2025, accounting for nearly half of total consumer spend, followed by Entertainment and Productivity.
Which category grew the fastest in revenue?
Productivity apps recorded the strongest revenue growth among major app categories in 2025, with nearly 80% year-over-year growth. This growth outpaced other large-scale categories and aligns with broader subscription adoption trends and evolving monetization models in habitual-use apps. Productivity combined steady app download growth with rapidly increasing consumer spend, making it a standout app category in terms of monetization momentum.
How should app marketers use app category market size?
App category market size data should be used to evaluate scale, growth, and monetization together, not in isolation. App downloads indicate reach and demand, revenue shows monetization potential, and growth rates highlight momentum or maturity. In 2025, some mid-scale categories outperformed larger ones in revenue efficiency. Marketers can use category-level data to prioritize app store keywords, pricing strategies, and expansion opportunities based on realistic category dynamics.
Do I need a tool to analyze app market size by category?
Analyzing app category market size requires aggregated App Store and Google Play data and consistent methodology. Market intelligence tools like AppTweak enable reliable cross-store category analysis. Check out our latest blog on choosing the best app market research tools for mobile growth.
How does AppTweak support app category market analysis?
AppTweak provides category-level app market intelligence by combining data from the App Store and Google Play. The platform aggregates app downloads and app revenue by category, calculates market share, and tracks year-over-year growth using a consistent methodology. This enables app marketers, product teams, and investors to evaluate category size, competitive intensity, and monetization dynamics based on standardized global data, rather than isolated store-specific metrics.
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Alexandra De Clerck
