With the containment, the mobile applications industry is reaching new heights

Work, talk, entertainment ... While nearly three billion people are confined to their homes due to the coronavirus epidemic, smartphones have become even more essential. A study by App Annie, a specialist in the application market, allows us to put figures on the effects of confinement on our mobile consumption.

As expected, the time spent each week on our applications has increased significantly, up to 20% globally for Android devices. Of course, the countries most affected are those most affected by the epidemic. Thus, the Chinese spent an average of five hours on their applications in the first quarter of 2020, 30% more than in the previous quarter. In France, the growth in time spent on smartphones amounted to 15%, compared to 10% for the United States and Germany.

AppAnnie

The adage "time is money" seems to make perfect sense during confinement. Indeed, according to data from App Annie, consumers would have spent $ 23.4 billion in application stores this quarter, an absolute record. In total, 31.5 billion applications were downloaded, 15% more than in the last three months of 2019. 22.5 billion downloads took place on Google Play, the Android store, against 9 billion on the AppStore, that of Apple.

Games are the most popular: they alone account for 45% of downloads on Android and 35% on the AppStore. In March 2020 alone, mobile game downloads increased 30% from the previous quarter's average. The games also weigh $ 16.7 billion out of the 23.4 spent.

AppAnnie

But they're not the only ones taking advantage of containment, other sectors have seen the number of downloads explode. On Android, applications categorized as “health and fitness” noted an increase of 40%, compared to 35% for “education” apps and 30% for “business” apps. App Annie also returns in its report on the exponential growth of telecommuting applications, such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams, and on the Houseparty phenomenon, whose downloads increased by 735% the week of March 15 compared to the previous one.

Finally, the download ranking shows the excellent form of TikTok, and the resounding entry into the European market of the Disney + streaming platform. Launched on March 24 on our continent, it generated five million downloads. To be able to take advantage of it in turn, France will have to wait until April 7.

AppAnnie