With a larger global audience, it’s no surprise that Android app downloads lead iOS. What’s more surprising is that iOS continues to maintain its revenue lead vs. the larger platform despite its larger download margin.
Those data come from the App Annie Q2 Index report, released earlier this week.
What’s also interesting to observe is that the patterns by country differ for the two platforms. The top five countries by revenue are substantially different for each of the platforms, except for the presence of the US and Japan on both lists. And with the exception of the US and Russia, the top five countries on the downloads chart are also different.
China now is the top country for iOS downloads; however, it’s not in the top five for Android. While Android has a nearly 80 percent market share in China, it doesn’t show up on the top downloads or revenue charts for Android. That may be because there are so many competing and alternative app stores to Google Play in China.
In contrast to the differences between the top revenue and download categories in the charts above, the time spent/session duration lists by app store are generally similar. Social is the top time spent category for both iOS and Android.
The session duration lists have even greater overlap. Of course both data sets below are for the US, so one might expect user behavior to be consistent across platforms.
Video streaming is growing on mobile, and it’s likely responsible for entertainment being the top session duration category on both lists. Yesterday, on its earnings call, Google said the following about video session length and mobile:
Growth in watch time on YouTube has accelerated and is now up over 60 percent year-over-year, the fastest growth rate we’ve seen in two years. Mobile watch time has more than doubled from a year ago. YouTube reaches more 18 to 49 year old in the U.S. than any U.S. cable network . . . On mobile the average viewing session is now more than 40 minutes up more than 50 percent year-over-year.
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