App Annie, a mobile data and analytics platform, announced the state of the mobile market for 2022 to welcome the new year. According to the report, global consumers will download 230 billion mobile apps, spend $170 billion, and spend 3.8 trillion hours on mobile apps in 2021 alone (downloads, consumer spend is on iOS and Google Play). , based on the sum of 3rd party Android in China, usage time is based on Android phone)
According to App Annie’s analysis, this means that every minute mobile consumers around the world download 435,000 new apps and spend 320,000 dollars (about 380 million won).
In 2021, global mobile app downloads grew by 5% compared to 2020 (218 billion). In addition, consumer spending grew by 19% from the previous year ($143 billion) and time spent growing by 6% from the previous year (3.5 trillion hours), overturning the forecast that mobile economic growth would contract in 2021 due to vaccination and easing of quarantine rules. The mainstream theory gained more power.
According to App Annie’s tally, the countries with the highest consumer spending in the world were China, the United States, and Japan, in that order. Korea was followed by fourth in the world. Consumer spending in South Korea in 2021 recorded $6.61 billion (about 7.9 trillion won), which showed a growth trend following $4.74 billion (about 5.6 trillion won) in 2019 and 5.63 billion dollars (about 6.7 trillion won) in 2020.
In 2021, it will grow by 17% compared to the previous year and in 2020 by 19% from the previous year, leading to the rapid growth of the mobile app economy. It can be seen that this has led to the modest growth of the mobile market.
Similar growth was also observed in the time spent on mobile apps. The countries spending the most time on mobile apps were in that order China, India, and the United States, followed by Korea in 13th place. In 2021, mobile app usage hours in South Korea were 46.6 billion hours, showing continued growth following 40.9 billion hours in 2019 and 46 billion hours in 2020.
In 2020, growth was 12% compared to the previous year, while in 2021, it recorded a growth of 1% compared to the previous year, showing a relatively slow growth. Then, in 2021, it surpassed 5 hours and took the third place in the world for average daily usage hours.
This indicates that mobile consumers in Korea spend ⅓ of their daily routine excluding sleeping time in a mobile environment, and have embraced a mobile lifestyle including business, education, finance, and health care beyond leisure (all based on Android phones).
The download sector is noteworthy in that consumer spending and time spent in apps show opposite trends while growing. The number of downloads in Korea in 2021 showed a decline compared to 2020 and 2019. The number of downloads recorded 2.05 billion in 2020, a slight increase of about 1% from 2.0.3 billion in 2019, but in 2021, the number of downloads grew by 2% compared to the previous year, reaching 2.01 billion.
The number of downloads, which has already grown significantly due to the strong distance implemented in 2019 and 2020, has entered a stable period after 2020. When we look at the growth in consumer spend and time spent on mobile apps, it can be inferred that more consumers are choosing to use existing apps instead of downloading new ones.
David Kim, Vice President of Global Sales for App Annie, said, “While big screens such as TVs are being pushed out as an adjunct to mobile, mobile continues to set new records in terms of time spent, downloads and consumer spend.” Mobile is expected to become a leading player in a new economy in 2022 that relies on digital socialization, hybrid work and entertainment beyond face-to-face and non-face-to-face divisions,” he said.
On the other hand, App Annie has dealt with an in-depth analysis of the app categories and mobile ecosystem, which were hot topics in 2021, such as games, fintech, retail, social, and video in the report. More details can be found in the 2022 Mobile Status Report on the App Annie website.
