Google Play Gaining Ground Against Apple, As Android App Downloads Outnumber iOS 2-to-1

Based on numbers announced at each company’s respective developer events, Benedict Evans reports Google Play is gaining ground against Apple’s app store, and may overtake it by year’s end.

According to Evans, a partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Apple and Google both offered numbers around what each company had paid to developers via their app stores last year, with Apple reportedly paying $10-billion, while Google Play’s pay-out to developers totaled $5-billion.

Evans says Apple shared numbers again this year at its Worldwide Developers Conference, reflecting the same dollar-figure – $10-billion – for developer payouts. Google, on the other hand, reported earlier this year that it had paid developers $7-billion – up from the $5-billion reported during the previous year.

[pullquote]It looks as though Play is growing faster than iOS and might overtake it this year.[/pullquote]

“It looks as though Play is growing faster than iOS,” writes Evans, “And, might overtake it this year – unless Apple is rounding down very aggressively.”

Evans notes that even though the numbers are based on rounded figures offered during company events and are not always comparable, they do provide a general view of each company’s app store activity.

Evans also compared Google and Apple’s app download figures, showing Google Play app downloads climbed to 50 billion in the last 12 months, while Apple’s app downloads reached only 25 billion. (Evans says this is the first year since 2013 the number of Android and iOS downloads could be compared.)

Google Android Versus iOS Downloads

With the number of Android users nearly double that of iOS-users, Evans says these download figures imply Android’s average user spends half as much as the average iOS-user.

“Given Android has double the user base of iOS, this meant that the average iOS user was worth around four-times the average Android user in app store revenue,” writes Evans.

He goes on to point out that, based on user numbers, Android is earning roughly the same number of downloads per user as iOS.