Gaming still dominates the $100 million app club, for now

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In 2021, 233 mobile apps crossed the $100 million mark in annual consumer spending worldwide, and just under 75% of them were games. That’s down from about 82% in 2020, as more nongaming apps passed that milestone than their gaming counterparts. Still, games continue to drive much of the consumer spending in the multibillion-dollar mobile app ecosystem.

Beyond the chart: People around the world spent $170 billion in apps of all types last year. Mobile games captured more than $116 billion of that spending, about $15 billion more than they did in 2020, due largely to the rise of in-app subscriptions and time spent with these apps amid the pandemic.

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