[From the industry] Mobile Outperformed 2020 expectations with Consumers Spending $143B on Apps

This is a press release directly from the industry, selected by our editorial team for its importance, that we are reposting in addition to our usual coverage.

App Annie, the mobile data and analytics company helping brands and publishers create winning experiences on mobile, today released The State of Mobile 2021 report. This annual appraisal provides insight into mobile’s expansive impact across industries and the global economy.

2020 accelerated mobile adoption as consumers used their mobile devices to connect, work, learn, play and escape despite COVID-19 restricting their way of life. Consumers spent $143 billion on mobile apps in 2020, an increase of 20% from 2019. Top markets driving this spend included China, United States, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom.

Select findings include:

• Time spent on mobile surged: 4.2 hours were spent on Android which amounted to 3.5 trillion hours, up by 20% and 25% respectively from 2019
• Mobile gaming remains unrivaled: This sector is on track to surpass $120 billion in consumer spend in 2021 which will capture 1.5x of the overall gaming market
• Time spent crossed generations: In the US, Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X/ Baby Boomers spent 16%, 18% and 30% more time per user YoY in their most-used apps
• Social networking apps take center stage: Time spent per user increased by up to 325% YoY.  TikTok is on track to hit 1.2 billion monthly active users in 2021 as consumers look to stay connected as well as entertained
• Mobile fuels the ad industry: In 2020 ad spend grew to $240 billion up by 26% from 2019
• Funding remained strong: $73 billion was invested in mobile companies up by 27% from 2019

The State of Mobile 2021 shows how to navigate macro trends and demographics which helps  identify which leading brands and publishers are winning across gaming, fintech, retail, social, video, and others.

“The world has forever changed. While people stay at home across the world, we saw mobile habits accelerate by three years.” said Theodore Krantz, Chief Executive Officer of App Annie.

According to James Cordery, Head of Performance Marketing Strategy, Deliveroo, “In 2020, we were able to focus on executing mobile strategies that really delivered incremental growth for Deliveroo. We were able to couple consumer insights with market context from App Annie to make decisions that have had a high impact on our performance.”

This year, with a brand new interactive experience, the report provides an overview of key narratives in mobile across 11 industries and 30 countries. The analysis and estimates in this report are based on App Annie Intelligence.