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IAC’s Teltech acquired encrypted mobile messaging app Confide
IAC has acquired Confide, the encrypted mobile messaging that once made headlines for its use by White House staffers during the Trump administration. The deal, which closed on Dec. 1, 2020 but was not publicly announced, sees Confide joining Teltech, the makers of spam call-busting app Robokiller, which itself had joined IAC’s Mosaic Group by way of a 2018 acquisition.
Teltech confirmed the Confide acquisition, but declined to share the deal terms. The confidential mobile messaging app had raised just $3.5 million in funding, according to Crunchbase data, and had been valued between $10 to $50 million, as a result. (Pitchbook put the valuation at ~$14 million around the same time.)
According to Teltech, the deal was for the Confide IP and technology, but not the team.
The company believes Confide makes for a good fit among its growing group of mobile communication apps, including Robokiller and its latest app, SwitchUp, which offers users a second phone number for additional privacy and spam blocking purposes. Other Teletech apps include phone call recorder TapeACall and blocked call unmasker TrapCall.
Confide, however, may end up being one of the better-known additions among that group, thanks to being remembered as a favored tool of choice among frustrated Washington Republicans during the Trump years.
But despite the user growth that news had driven, things slowed in the months that followed, when researchers published a report that claimed Confide wasn’t as secure as it had promised. Confide quickly fixed its vulnerabilities but then a month later was facing a class action lawsuit (later dismissed by the plaintiff) over the security issues.
Teltech says it was aware of the security concerns, but it had conversations with the prior Confide team and understands that the earlier issues had been “quickly and effectively remediated.”
While IAC won’t speak to its specific plans for Confide’s future, the app will continue to offer users a safe and secure way to communicate. What it won’t do, though, is try to directly compete with Telegram or other private apps that offer large channels or group chats that support tens of thousands of people at once.
“I think one kind of key differentiators is that Confide is definitely more for one-on-one and smaller group communication, rather than with Signal and Telegram where there’s some larger chat dynamics,” notes Giulia Porter, Teltech’s VP of Marketing. “One thing that makes us a little bit different is just that we’re more personal,” she says.
Despite having hit some bumps in the road over the years, Confide as of the time of the acquisition, still had around 100,000 monthly active users. There’s now a team of around 10 assigned to work on the app, adding needed resources to its further development, and soon, an updated logo and branding.
Confide’s existing desktop and mobile apps will also continue to be available, but later updated with new features as part of Teltech’s efforts.
Investors and IAC alike have declined to talk about deal price, but that may speak for itself.
“With the absolute explosion in privacy over the past several years, Confide, which started as a side project, has become a mission-critical platform for sensitive communication throughout the world,” said Confide co-founder and President Jon Brod, in a statement shared with TechCrunch about Confide’s exit.
“We’re thrilled that IAC shares our passion for secure communication and recognizes the unique business we have built. IAC has a proven track record of providing fast-growing companies with the support to reach their full potential and we are excited to see IAC take Confide to the next level,” he said.
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Proxyclick visitor management system adapts to COVID as employee check-in platform
Proxyclick began life by providing an easy way to manage visitors in your building with an iPad-based check-in system. As the pandemic has taken hold, however, customer requirements have changed, and Proxyclick is changing with them. Today the company announced Proxyclick Flow, a new system designed to check in employees during the time of COVID.
“Basically when COVID hit, our customers told us that actually our employees are the new visitors. So what you used to ask your visitors, you are now asking your employees — the usual probing questions, but also when are you coming and so forth. So we evolved the offering into a wider platform,” Proxyclick co-founder and CEO Gregory Blondeau explained.
That means instead of managing a steady flow of visitors — although it can still do that — the company is focusing on the needs of customers who want to open their offices on a limited basis during the pandemic, based on local regulations. To help adapt the platform for this purpose, the company developed the Proovr smartphone app, which employees can use to check in prior to going to the office, complete a health checklist, see who else will be in the office and make sure the building isn’t over capacity.
When the employee arrives at the office, they get a temperature check, and then can use the QR code issued by the Proovr app to enter the building via Proxyclick’s check-in system or whatever system they have in place. Beyond the mobile app, the company has designed the system to work with a number of adjacent building management and security systems so that customers can use it in conjunction with existing tooling.
They also beefed up the workflow engine that companies can adapt based on their own unique entrance and exit requirements. The COVID workflow is simply one of those workflows, but Blondeau recognizes not everyone will want to use the exact one they have provided out of the box, so they designed a flexible system.
“So the challenge was technical on one side to integrate all the systems, and afterwards to group workflows on the employee’s smartphone, so that each organization can define its own workflow and present it on the smartphone,” Blondeau said.
Once in the building, the systems registers your presence and the information remains on the system for two weeks for contact tracing purposes should there be an exposure to COVID. You check out when you leave the building, but if you forget, it automatically checks you out at midnight.
The company was founded in 2010 and has raised $18.5 million. The most recent raise was a $15 million Series B in January.
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Turbo Systems becomes Appify and launches app marketplace
When Jen Grant joined Turbo Systems, the no-code mobile application platform, as CEO in March, she came on board just as COVID was shutting down businesses. But she went straight to work, and over the last six months she has led two major initiatives that the company announced today: a name change and a new app marketplace.
For starters, the company is changing its name to Appify to more accurately reflect its mission around building mobile apps. She says that they found most people related the term “turbo” to cars. They began looking for a better name that was more closely aligned with what they do when her team stumbled across Appify .
“We had been playing around with different names and what we are about, and a lot of what we’re about is amplifying your business and your systems and your people with apps. And so when we kind of stumbled across Appify and the domain name was available, we moved quite quickly,” Grant explained.
While she was at it, Grant was talking to customers, and while the core company mission is to make it easy to build mobile apps, especially in the field service space, she felt that they could make it even easier. Rather than asking customers to build the apps themselves, they could provide a marketplace with some pre-built apps and simply let them customize them for their workflows.
“What we have done with the Appify Marketplace is instead of saying, here’s a box of parts, now fix your business problem, we’re saying, here’s an app that you can launch in minutes. It has all of the functionality that you will need […] and you can then very easily customize it using this no-code platform to make it specific to your business,” she said.
The marketplace is launching today with a couple of apps aimed at the company’s core field service market, including Field Sales, which allows salespeople in the field to send a bid or quote from a tablet directly from the field without having to return to the office. The other is a Field Service app for repair people, which provides all of the information about the repair, while allowing the service rep to update the customer record from the field using a mobile device.
Grant says this is just the start and there are many apps on the road map that they will be releasing in the coming months. Eventually, they may have systems integrators use the platform to build apps for specific industries as they move forward.
Appify was born as Turbo Systems in 2017 and has raised more than $11 million, according to PitchBook data.
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Google Play Pass expands outside the US, adds more titles and annual pricing
Google Play Pass, the Android alternative to subscription-based game store Apple Arcade, is expanding. Launched in September 2019 with more than 350 apps and games, Play Pass today announced it has added 150 new titles, including Sonic the Hedgehog, Golf Peaks and kid-friendly content like apps from Sesame Workshop, for example. In addition, the service will be offered in a range of new non-U.S. markets for the first time and is adding an annual subscription option.
Unlike Apple Arcade, Google Play Pass at launch offered a combination of games and premium apps, like AccuWeather, Facetune and Pic Stitch, for example. (Facetune and AccuWeather have since been removed). It also included a notable list of launch titles, like Stardew Valley, Risk, Terraria, Monument Valley, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Reigns: Game of Thrones, Titan Quest and Wayward Souls.
The company has been steadily growing its lineup since its debut. Google says that over the past few months, it has added more than 150 titles and is preparing to roll out even more. A series of new titles will also premiere on Google Play Pass this year at launch, starting with the newly released The Almost Gone from Playdigious, available now. This will be followed by The Gardens Between and Kingdom Rush, then new releases like Bright Paw from Rogue and Line Weight from The Label coming later this year.
With the expansion, Google Play Pass now includes more than 500 apps and games.
The company is also offering a different way to pay for the subscription. Play Pass first offered users a $1.99 per month promotional subscription for the first year, which would increase to $4.99 per month afterwards. As early adopters are nearing the price change, Google is instead giving them a chance to save by paying for a year’s subscription upfront. The new annual subscription option brings the price down to $29.99 per year in the U.S., which works out to roughly $2.50 per month.
Existing subscribers will be able to make the change to an annual subscription from the Play Pass tab in the Play Store app for Android this week.
The service is also launching internationally with availability in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom, starting this week.
Because Play Pass didn’t rely as heavily on exclusives and included non-game apps, it was able to offer a larger catalog than Apple Arcade did at launch. Today, Apple touts that Arcade offers more than 100 games, while Google has added more apps than that in just the past several months.
Google also ties its payouts to developers based on Play Pass downloads, while Apple had offered upfront funding for Arcade titles, with more for exclusives. iOS developers are also under NDA about their agreements, but a revenue share is reportedly involved here, as well.
Both services cater to a growing audience interested in subscription-based entertainment, which is no longer limited to just streaming music and video. Outside of standard mobile game revenue, app subscriptions have been driving increases in consumer spend across the app stores for some time.
The Google Play Pass expansion to new markets and the annual subscription option are both rolling out this week.
Correction: Google initially described the annual subscription as U.S.-only. It will be offered elsewhere. The company updated its own announcement on the matter to clarify this.
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This Week in Apps: HQ Trivia’s dramatic death, Android 11, Apple mulls a more open iOS
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all.
The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads in 2019 and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019, according to App Annie’s recently released “State of Mobile” annual report. People are now spending 3 hours and 40 minutes per day using apps, rivaling TV. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus.
In this Extra Crunch series, we help you keep up with the latest news from the world of apps, delivered on a weekly basis.
This week we look at the sad, strange death of HQ Trivia, spying app ToTok getting booted from Google Play (again!), Android 11, an enticing Apple rumor about opening up iOS further to third-party apps, Google Stadia updates, the App Store book Apple wants banned, apps abusing subscriptions and much more.
Headlines
HQ Trivia burns to the ground
Once-hot HQ Trivia believed it had invented a new kind of online gaming — live trivia played through your phone. Investors threw $15 million into the company hoping that was true. But the novelty wore off, cheaters came in, prize money dwindled and copycats emerged. Then co-founder Colin Kroll passed away and things at HQ Trivia got worse, including a failed internal mutiny, firings and layoffs. This week, HQ Trivia announced its demise. It then hosted one last, insane night of gaming featuring drunken and cursing hosts who sprayed champagne, called out trolls and begged for new jobs. (Sure, because they exited this one so professionally.)
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This Week in Apps: Apple antitrust issues come to Congress, subscription apps boom, Tencent takes on TikTok
Welcome back to ThisWeek in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all.
The app industry is as hot as ever with a record 204 billion downloads in 2019 and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019, according to App Annie’s recently released “State of Mobile” annual report. People are now spending 3 hours and 40 minutes per day using apps, rivaling TV. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus.
In this Extra Crunch series, we help you keep up with the latest news from the world of apps, delivered on a weekly basis.
This week, there was a ton of app news. We’re digging into the latest with Apple’s antitrust issues, Tencent’s plan to leverage WeChat to fend off the TikTok threat, AppsFlyer’s massive new round, the booming subscription economy, Disney’s mobile game studio sale, Pokémon GO’s boost to tourism, Match Group’s latest investment and much more. And did you see the app that lets you use your phone from within a paper envelope? Or the new AR social network? It’s Weird App Week, apparently.
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This Week in Apps: Honey’s $4B exit, a new plan for iOS 14, Apple’s new developer resource
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support, and the money that flows through it all. What are developers talking about? What do app publishers and marketers need to know? How are politics impacting the App Store and app businesses? And which apps are everyone using?
This week, we’re looking at several major stories, including the whopping $4 billion PayPal just spent on browser extension and mobile app maker, Honey, as well as the release of the Apple Developer app, a new plan for iOS 14, Google Stadia’s launch, AR gaming’s next big hit (or flop?), e-commerce app trends, Microsoft’s exit from voice assistant mobile apps, and so much more.
Plus, did you hear the one about the developer who got kicked out from his developer account by Apple, leaving his apps abandoned?
Headlines
Apple to overhaul iOS development strategy after buggy iOS 13 launch
Apple’s iOS 13 release was one of its worst, in terms of bugs and glitches. Now Apple is making an internal change to how it approaches software development in an effort to address the problem. According to Bloomberg, Apple’s Software chief Craig Federighi and other execs announced its plans at an internal meeting. The new process will involve having unfinished and buggy features disabled by default in daily builds. Testers will then have to optionally enable the features in order to try them. While this change focuses on making internal builds of the OS more usable (or “livable”), Apple hopes that over time it will improve the overall quality of its software as it will give testers the ability to really understand what’s supposed to now be working, but isn’t. The testing changes will also apply to iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and macOS, the report said.
Apple launches the Apple Developer App
Apple rebranded and expanded its existing WWDC app to become a new Apple Developer app that can stay with its 23 million registered developers year-round. Instead of only including information about the developer event itself, the app will expand to include other relevant resources — like technical and design articles, developer news and updates, videos and more. It also will offer a way for developers to enroll in the Apple Developer program and maintain their membership. Apple says it found many developers were more inclined to open an app than an email, and by centralizing this information in one place, it could more efficiently and seamlessly deliver new information and other resources to its community.
PayPal buys Honey for $4 billion
PayPal has made its biggest-ever acquisition for browser extension and mobile app maker, Honey. TechCrunch exclusively broke the news of the nearly all-cash deal, noting that Honey currently has 17 million monthly actives. But PayPal was interested in more than the user base — it wanted the tech. The company plans to insert itself ahead of the checkout screen by getting involved with the online shopping and research process, where customers visit sites and look for deals. Honey’s offer-finding features from its mobile app will also become part of PayPal and Venmo’s apps in the future.
Cloud gaming expands with Google Stadia launch
Cloud-based gaming could benefit from the growing investment in 5G. Google Stadia, which launched this week, is a big bet on 5G in that regard. Though the early reviews were middling, Google believes the next generation of gaming will involve continuous, cross-device play, including on mobile devices. This trend was already apparent with the successes of cross-platform games like Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, and PUBG, for example. Meanwhile, console makers like Microsoft are working to build out their own cloud infrastructure to compete. (Microsoft’s xCloud launches in May 2020.) Google could have a head start, even if Stadia today feels more like a beta than a finished product. But one question that still arises is whether Google is serious about gaming, or only sees Stadia as a content engine for YouTube?
Microsoft kills Cortana mobile apps
Microsoft this week belatedly realized it can’t compete with the built-in advantages that Siri and Google Assistant offer users, like dedicated buttons, hands-free voice commands, workflow building and more. The company decided to shut down its Cortana mobile applications on iOS and Android in a number of markets, including Great Britain, Australia, Germany, Mexico, China, Spain, Canada, and India. Any bets on when the U.S. makes that list?
SF Symbols expands
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App revenue climbs 23% year-over-year to $21.9B in Q3
Global app revenue continues to climb, thanks to the growth in mobile gaming and the subscription economy. In the third quarter of 2019, consumer revenue grew 22.9% year-over-year from $17.9 billion to reach an estimated $21.9 billion across both the App Store and Google Play worldwide, according to new data from Sensor Tower.
Notably, the App Store continues to account for the large majority of this revenue, the report found, making up 65% of total spending compared with just 35% on Google Play.
App Store users spent $14.2 billion, up 22.3% from the $11.6 billion they spent in Q3 2018. Google Play generated $7.7 billion in revenue, up 24% from the $6.2 billion spent in the year-ago quarter.
Sensor Tower’s revenue estimates are a bit lower than those provided by App Annie’s recent report, which said the quarter saw $23 billion in consumer spending, not ~$22 billion.
App Annie also estimated nearly 31 billion downloads in Q3, while Sensor Tower claimed 29.6 billion.
In both cases, Google Play is still said to be the main source for downloads, with nearly three times more first-time installs than the App Store. In Q3, the total number of downloads was up 9.7% year-over-year to 29.6 billion, said Sensor Tower, with Google Play accounting for 21.6 billion of those.
Despite the overall growth, one big app market — China — saw a slight decline, Sensor Tower found. Its installs dropped 6% year-over-year to 2.2 billion in the quarter. But its revenue grew by 26.9% to $4.1 billion, up from $3.2 billion the year prior. This could be attributed to the nine-month game license freeze in China which, though now lifted, had slowed momentum.
Sensor Tower’s charts don’t include third-party app stores, so it’s not a full picture of the Chinese app market, it’s worth noting.
The top money-making (non-game) app in the quarter was again Tinder, which generated $233 million in consumer spending, up 7% over the prior quarter. Netflix was No. 2 and YouTube clocked in at No. 3, at $164 million in Q3.
App Annie has a slightly different ranking. It has Tinder and Netflix leading the top-grossing charts, but puts IQIYI ahead of YouTube. This could be because App Annie has a bigger window into the Chinese app market.
In terms of downloads, TikTok is continuing to disrupt Facebook-owned apps’ dominance over the top of the charts. In Sensor Tower’s rankings, WhatsApp was No. 1 and Messenger was No. 3, but Facebook and Instagram dropped to No. 4 and No. 5, respectively. And TikTok reached No. 2.
This isn’t the first time TikTok has passed Facebook, Sensor Tower said — it did so back in Q4 2018 and in Q1 2019, before dropping to No. 4 again last quarter. But with 177 million downloads in Q3, it’s inching its way up to the top.
App Annie, on the other hand, sees TikTok having just a bit more of climb, sticking it at No. 3 in the quarter, behind Messenger and Facebook. It also called out some Q3 break-out hits, like the return of FaceApp’s popularity (No. 9 in downloads) and the growing subscription revenue of Google One (No. 7 in non-game revenue). Sensor Tower put FaceApp at No. 6 instead, but agreed on Google One.
Mobile gaming continues to generate most of the cash, and did so again in Q3 with $16.3 billion in mobile game gross revenue — or 74% of the total in-app spending, the new report said. The App Store accounted for $9.8 billion of that figure, with Google Play users spending $6.5 billion.
Game downloads across both Google Play and the App Store increased by 17.6% in Q3 from 9.5 billion last year to 11.1 billion.
The top three games in the quarter by downloads were Fun Race 3D (123 million downloads), PUBG Mobile (94 million) and newcomer Mario Kart Tour, which hit 86 million downloads despite only launching in late September.
PUBG Mobile was the top-grossing game with $496 million in revenue, up 652% over last year. The No. 2 title, Tencent’s Honor of Kings, and No. 3 Aniplex’s Fate/Grand Order generated $377 million and $354 million, respectively.
Image credits: Sensor Tower
Correction: App Annie estimated nearly 31 billion downloads in Q3, not 23 billion as first written. We corrected this. Apologies for the error.
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App Annie acquires analytics firm Libring, bringing adtech-related insights to its platform
App Annie, a go-to source for mobile app market data and analytics, is expanding its platform with the acquisition of mobile analytics provider Libring. The deal will allow App Annie to present its mobile app market data side by side with advertising analytics data in order to paint a more complete picture of an app’s performance and revenue.
Already, App Annie customers leverage its platform to track key metrics related to their app’s growth and usage, like downloads, active users, retention numbers, demographics, rankings, reviews, competitive analysis and more. But the company said it heard from publishers and brands how it’s still difficult to analyze their user acquisition efforts, including their ad spend and related costs.
With the addition of Libring, App Annie is integrating adtech insights into its platform.
This includes the ability to combine the ad spend and monetization insights from more than 325 data sources, including Supply Side Platforms (SSPs), Demand Side Platforms (DSPs), app stores and analytics platforms.
This data is then presented in a single dashboard so it’s easier to understand critical metrics — like the customer acquisition cost, the lifetime value, the return on ad spend and the return on investment.
It’s ideal for larger organizations that have outgrown the spreadsheet, as it’s been sort of the App Annie of revenue aggregation, so to speak.
“The most successful companies find a way to capitalize on mobile, yet they have been struggling to maximize its value to their business,” explained App Annie CEO Ted Krantz, in a statement about the acquisition. “Today, this requires custom work to stitch together multiple point solutions, spreadsheets, business intelligence teams, agencies and consultants. We are committed to solving this by applying data science and machine learning to automate these composite metrics for brands and publishers,” he said.
The deal comes at a time when mobile ad spend is continuing to grow rapidly — it’s expected to double to $375 billion globally by 2022, the company noted. It’s now a massive part of the overall app industry, at triple the amount of consumer spending on the app stores.
As a result of the deal, Libring’s 30-plus employees are joining App Annie.
In the near-term, Libring’s current customers will continue to use its product as they do today.
But App Annie tells us there’s only some overlap between the two companies’ respective customer bases. For now, App Annie will work with its customers who want to purchase the new analytics service and find out what sort of enhancements they are looking for in an analytics solution. Libring’s customers can also purchase App Annie’s analytics, if they choose.
Later, App Annie will migrate the Libring backend to the same infrastructure provider the rest of App Annie uses, and will then integrate the front-end so customers can log in and visualize the new analytics and other market data together. More information about how this will all work will be shared when those tools are closer to being available, which is still several months from now.
Going forward, App Annie says its data science team will also offer predictive and prescriptive insights based on the new data.
According to Libring’s website, its customers included SEGA, Slickdeals, Reddit, Jam City, Wooga, EA, Zynga, Next Games, Meet Me, GameInsight, Deviant Art, Webedia, Ubisoft, theChive, saambaa, badoo, textnow and others.
App Annie declined to disclose the deal terms.
Related to the changes and expansion, App Annie also today introduced a new brand that features a gem logomark. The gem is meant to be a tribute to mobile gaming and the idea of “leveling up” while also a reflection of the value of actionable data, the company says.
The acquisition comes on the heels of several notable milestones for App Annie, including the launch of a product development testing ground, App Annie Labs; plus the addition of mobile web analytics in March — the same time when App Annie passed $100 million in annual recurring revenue.
The company is soliciting feedback about its plans for Libring and will post updates about the project on App Annie Labs, it says.
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App revenue tops $39 billion in first half of 2019, up 15% from first half of last year
App store spending is continuing to grow, although not as quickly as in years past. According to a new report from Sensor Tower, the iOS App Store and Google Play combined brought in $39.7 billion in worldwide app revenue in the first half of 2019 — that’s up 15.4% over the $34.4 billion seen during the first half of last year. However, at that time, the $34.4 billion was a 27.8% increase from 2017’s numbers, then a combined $26.9 billion across both stores.
Apple’s App Store continues to massively outpace Google Play on consumer spending, the report also found.
In the first half of 2019, global consumers spent $25.5 billion on the iOS App Store, up 13.2% year-over-year from the $22.6 billion spent in the first half of 2018. Last year, the growth in consumer spending was 26.8%, for comparison’s sake.
Still, Apple’s estimated $25.5 billion in the first half of 2019 is 80% higher than Google Play’s estimated gross revenue of $14.2 billion — the latter a 19.6% increase from the first half of 2018.
The major factor in the slowing growth is iOS in China, which contributed to the slowdown in total growth. However, Sensor Tower expects to see China returning to positive growth over the next 12 months, we’re told.
To a smaller extent, the downturn could be attributed to changes with one of the top-earning apps across both app stores: Netflix.
Last year, Netflix dropped in-app subscription sign-ups for Android users. Then, at the end of December 2018, it did so for iOS users, too. That doesn’t immediately drop its revenue to zero, of course — it will continue to generate revenue from existing subscribers. But the number will decline, especially as Netflix expands globally without an in-app purchase option, and as lapsed subscribers return to renew online with Netflix directly.
In the first half of 2019, Netflix was the second highest earning non-game app with consumer spending of $339 million, Sensor Tower estimates, down from $459 million in the first half of 2018. (We should point out the firm bases its estimates on a 70/30 split between Netflix and Apple’s App Store that drops to 85/15 after the first year. To account for the mix of old and new subscribers, Sensor Tower factors in a 25% cut. But Daring Fireball’s John Gruber claims Netflix had a special relationship with Apple where it had an 85/15 cut from year one.)
In any event, Netflix’s contribution to the app stores’ revenue is on the decline.
In the first half of last year, Netflix had been the No. 1 non-game app for revenue. This year, that spot went to Tinder, which pulled in an estimated $497 million across the iOS App Store and Google Play, combined. That’s up 32% over the first half of 2018.
But Tinder’s dominance could be a trend that doesn’t last.
According to recent data from eMarketer, dating app audiences have been growing slower than expected, causing the analyst firm to revise its user estimates downward. It now expects that 25.1 million U.S. adults will use a dating app monthly this year, down from its previous forecast of 25.4 million. It also expects that only 21% of U.S. single adults will use a dating app at all in 2019, and that will only grow to 23% by 2023.
That means Tinder’s time at the top could be overrun by newcomers in later months, especially as new streaming services get off the ground (assuming they offer in-app subscriptions); if TikTok starts taking monetization seriously; or if any other large apps from China find global audiences outside of China’s third-party app stores.
For example, Tencent Video grossed $278 million globally in the first half of 2019, outside of the third-party Chinese Android app stores. That made it the third-largest non-game app by revenue. And Chinese video platform iQIYI and YouTube were the No. 4 and No. 5 top-grossing apps, respectively.
Meanwhile, iOS app installs actually declined in the first half of the year, following the first quarter that saw a decline in downloads, Q1 2019, attributed to the downturn in China.
The App Store in the first half of 2019 accounted for 14.8 billion of the total 56.7 billion app installs.
Google Play installs in the first half of the year grew 16.4% to 41.9 billion, or about 2.8 times greater than the iOS volume.
The most downloaded apps in the first half of 2019 were the same as before: WhatsApp, Messenger and Facebook led the top charts. But TikTok inched ahead of Instagram for the No. 4 spot, and it saw its installs grow around 28% to nearly 344 million worldwide.
In terms of mobile gaming specifically, spending was up 11.3% year-over-year in the first half of 2019, reaching $29.6 billion across the iOS App Store and Google Play. Thanks to the fallout of the game licensing freeze in China, App Store revenue growth for games was at $17.6 billion, or 7.8% year-over-year growth. Google Play game spending grew by 16.8% to $12 billion.
The top-grossing games, in order, were Tencent’s Honor of Kings, Fate/Grand Order, Monster Strike, Candy Crush Saga and PUBG Mobile.
Meanwhile, the most downloaded games were Color Bump 3D, Garena Free Fire and PUBG Mobile.
Image credits: Sensor Tower
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