Apple users may spend more on non-gaming mobile apps by 2024 - report

(Reuters) - Apple Inc's customers may end up spending more on non-gaming mobile apps by 2024, data analytics firm SensorTower said on Monday, as lockdown lifestyles result in users looking beyond games to apps that help with more essential services.

Downloads of business, education, health and fitness apps have seen a sharp spike due to the stay-at-home measures during the health crisis.

During the initial days of the pandemic, users spent more on mobile games in the App Store. But as lockdowns got extended, upending work life as well as the ways of communication, their attention shifted to photo and video-sharing, dating, video-conferencing and instant messaging apps.

Shares of companies such as Zoom Video Communications Inc and Match Group and other stay-at-home companies soared last year.

SensorTower said consumer spending on mobile apps will reach $270 billion in the next five years globally, a more than three-fold increase when compared with 2020.

Apple customers will outspend their Android counterparts with the App Store expected to generate $185 billion in global revenue, the data analytics firm said.

Games revenue will continue to take a relatively higher share on Google Play store than the App Store, with a projected 71% share from games in 2025 compared to 42% on the App Store, data showed.

The data analytics firm expects Europe to become a key market over the next five years, with revenue growth in the continent likely to outpace that in Asia and North America.

Downloads in Europe are expected to grow to 36.9 billion by 2025, compared with 28.4 billion in 2020, while revenue growth is expected to more than double to $42 billion in the next five years.

(Reporting by Eva Mathews and Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)