The subscription economy helped boost mobile app revenue in 2025, even as app downloads fell for a fifth year in a row, according to the app intelligence firm Appfiguresannual report. In 2025, global downloads of all mobile apps and mobile games via the App Store and Google Play are estimated to reach 106.9 billion, down 2.7% from the previous year. Consumer spending, meanwhile, rose 21.6% to an estimated $155.8 billion over the same period.
The data shows that app developers, marketers and publishers have been successful in getting their users to make in-app purchases or activate subscriptions, even though the number of new users downloading apps is declining.
The report also reflects the continued shift away from mobile gaming as the main revenue driver for the app economy. In 2025, consumers will spend $72.2 billion on mobile games, accounting for approximately 46% of all mobile app spending. While that figure is up 10% year-over-year, spending on non-gaming mobile apps has also increased. In fact, spending on non-gaming apps grew 33.9% year-over-year to reach $82.6 billion in 2025, Appfigures reported.
While consumers may not like the fact that almost every app now has in-app purchases or a built-in subscription model, this has provided a more viable path for app developers. In addition, the shift to ongoing payments for apps has helped fuel an ecosystem of businesses serving the mobile app ecosystem. This includes subscription management platform RevenueCat, which raised a $50 million Series C last year, and Application feea startup helping mobile games improve their monetization announced a $58 million Series B back in August. This week, Liftoff Mobile, which helps market and monetize apps, filed for an IPO.
As revenues rose, downloads fell again in 2025.
After reaching an all-time high of 135 billion in 2020 during the pandemic, downloads have declined. This year’s figure of 106.9 billion installs is down from 109.8 billion in 2024 and follows a slowdown in download growth between 2023 and 2024, when installs fell 3.3%.
Mobile game downloads have seen a steeper decline this year. In 2025, mobile games were downloaded 39.4 billion times, down 8.6% year-over-year, after a 6.6% decline from 2023 to 2024. Non-game app downloads were essentially flat — seeing only a slight 1.1% year-over-year increase to 67.4 billion.
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The full report also takes a look at the US market in particular. Here, consumers spent an estimated $55.5 billion on all mobile apps, up 18.1% year over year from $47 billion in 2024. Downloads reached 10 billion, down 4.2% from 10.4 billion in 2024. US consumers spent $33.6 billion on non-game apps and $9 billion on non-game apps, over $26 billion a year. games, just 6.8%.
US non-game app downloads are estimated to be 7.1 billion in 2025, while games were downloaded 2.9 billion times.
