This Week in Apps - Nord's Big Break
This Week in Apps is a short, no-fluff, round-up of interesting things that happened in the mobile industry. Here are our top highlights.
U.S. Revenue Index (vs. 30 days ago)
Insights
1. The VPN that Won the Ban on TikTok
TikTok returned to the App Store and Google Play in the US this weekend after about a month of being officially banned. On ban day, US users rushed to download VPN apps thinking they'd help them keep their beloved short-video feed.
They didn't, but that pushed many VPN apps to the top of the charts.
The hype came and went, but of all the VPN apps in the store, one won the race big time!
NordVPN is one of the most popular VPN services on and off mobile thanks in large to its amazing investment in advertising. For a very long time it was hard not to see a YouTube video sponsored by the service.
No-name brand VPN apps flood the App Store and Google Play, and a few managed to get visibility thanks to search ads and App Store Optimization, but when it comes to branded apps, Nord is at the top.
That's why its revenue has more than doubled since the beginning of 2023 and is now earning more than $250K of net revenue, what Nord gets to keep after store fees, every day (on average). And that number continues to rise.
On January 19th, a date that might sound familiar because it was the day TikTok was banned in the US, Nord's revenue rose higher than ever before - and not by a smidge.
According to our App Intelligence, NordVPN's net revenue crossed $800K. In just one day!
NordVPN's revenue is already double what it was at the same time last year and with the way the internet and global politics are playing, I don't see this rise slowing down any time soon.
The takeaway here isn't that you should build a VPN but rather that you should build a brand - I hope you caught that.
2. X's Mobile Revenue Grew 128% in 2024, but the Competition isn't Slowing Down
January is behind us which means it's time to dig into X's performance as I have been doing since the platform launched a subscription service.
And because we have a whole year of data behind us, I zoomed out and looked at X's yearly revenue in addition to its monthly revenue. And boy, was 2024 a big year.
Twitter's future wasn't very clear after Elon's takeover back in 2022. Especially when he put more emphasis on its subscription service.
Many didn't think that could generate enough revenue, and if you've been following my writing, you know I was one of its biggest critics because it was barely making any money - just $6.8M of net revenue (earnings after store fees) in all of 2022. That's about a day and a half of ChatGPT's revenue.
But lots of things changed in 2023 and that resulted in a big revenue increase for the service, pushing it up to the big(ger) leagues with a 671% increase to $54M. And remember, this is all net revenue, which means what the company gets to keep after Apple and Google take their 30% cut of in-app purchases.
Things got even hotter in 2024, the year X's net revenue crossed into nine-digit land.
Our estimates show that X earned a tad over $123M of net revenue from the App Store and Google Play in 2024. That's an increase of $69M or 128% from 2023.
Why did revenue grow so much in 2024 (other than politics)?
- New subscription tiers - After the initial success of the $8 plan, X added a less expensive tier (Basic, $4/mo) and a more expensive tier (Premium+, now $30/mo). It also increased the Premium tier to $11/mo.
- Grok - Elon's other company, xAI, released a service to compete with ChatGPT and made it available within the X app. That got it more attention quickly and also made a paid subscription more attractive to those looking for an alternative to ChatGPT.
- Promotional offerings - For the first time, X offered a discount on yearly subscriptions for Black Friday and then for the end of the year.
More features adding to more revenue isn't a real surprise, especially in an era where AI has become a household topic, but a more flexible pricing strategy and aggressive promotions are something more developers can benefit from.
What about 2025?
I almost forgot!
According to our App Intelligence, X added $14.6M of net revenue in January from the App Store and Google Play - A drop of roughly 18% from December. I attribute the drop to an increase in annual subscription purchases in December as a result of the promotional campaigns X ran during Black Friday and at the end of the year. So this isn't a big surprise.
However, growing competition from Bluesky and Threads are actively attempting to hijack X's audience, which could spell trouble in the coming months. It's hard to tell what'll happen, but I don't expect people to be actively using multiple social networks and that's a race I expect to heat back up in 2025.
3. Squid Games and Naruto Proved the Power IP Has to Drive UA - The Most Downloaded Games in the World
A new year brings another chance to check in what mobile gamers are downloading worldwide. After poring over the figures, the rankings were populated with a lot of familiar names, but big moves were made by titles based on or delivering team-ups with properties that got their start outside of games.
Anyone who follows our rankings (or has looked at the app stores' games sections) knows Subway Surfers. The title has been at or near the top of the global download charts for years on end; last month it managed to return to #1 once again.
We're doing something a little different and look at a game on the iOS ranking only. That's because the real talk of the charts last month was Squid Game from Netflix, a rare title for the company in that it was made playable by all users of the app stores and not just subscribers to its SVOD service. It proved to be a smart move for A) raising Netflix's profile in games, B) showing its ability to make successful titles based on its TV and movie properties, and C) getting the word out about season two of Squid Game, which premiered around the same time. It rose from #7 in December to #2 last month as marketing increased, as did word of mouth.
Back to the overall top five, the other standout for the month was Free Fire at #4, up from #5 in December, which doesn't seem like much until you realize how it moved up — by a collaboration with the incredibly popular anime/manga property Naruto. In fact, some versions of the game had their names updated to Free Fire x Naruto Shippuden and Naruto himself on the app icon.
All told, January drove an estimated 140M new game downloads worldwide for the top 10 games, not including Android in China. That was up by just about 2% from December's top 10 tally of approximately 137M.
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4. Finally a Top 10 Worth $1N - The Highest Earning Games in the World
Let's take a look at which games were most successful in at getting gamers to open their (virtual) wallets last month thanks to our freshly generated revenue estimates.
Tencent's "forever game" Honor of Kings rose back up and reclaimed the #1 earning game throne last month, after having been deposed in December by not one, not two, but three other titles: Last War, Pokémon TCG Pocket, and Whiteout Survival.
Monopoly Go was another big game that rebounded in an equally big way last month, moving back up the game (ranking) board to #2 from #5 in December. Another top of the charts staple, Royal Match, also ascended back toward the throne at #3, after having fallen to #6 in December. The previously mentioned Last War and Whiteout Survival slid to #4 and #5, respectively.
Worth noting: Having met with a mixed reception after a very long wait, Pokémon TCG Pocket fell from #2 in December to #10 last month.
All told, the full roster of top 10 earning titles crossed $1B for the first time, something we've been tracking towards for a very, very long time.
5. LinkedIn is the Highest Earning Social Media Platform Right Now
When thinking of "social networks" you might think about Instagram, X, or even Facebook. Maybe even SnapChat and, most likely, TikTok. One name that doesn't pop into most people's heads when thinking about a social media network is LinkedIn
But it is...
Over the last few years, LinkedIn has grown from a place to post your resume and suit picture to a vibrant social platform with an algorithmic feed and many active users who aren't on the platform to upload a resume but rather share things like they would on any other platform, just a bit more professional.
That bit might seem like an important piece of information and you might even think it makes LinkedIn a "secondary" platform where people also post. But that isn't the case, and looking at its performance makes it clear that social media platforms are mostly mutually exclusive - active users tend to be active on one and not many.
That has helped LinkedIn's revenue rise nearly 600% since 2020. In more absolute terms, LinkedIn brought in more than a half billion dollars of net revenue - what's left after Apple and Google take their respective cuts - in 2024, according to our App Intelligence.
According to our estimates, LinkedIn ended 2024 with $506M of net revenue (roughly $722M of gross revenue), up $122M from 2023. The 32% increase is a result of growing demand for the platform's Premium tier, and that's not surprising because we've now seen it across all social media platforms.
Except, LinkedIn seems to know how to monetize its users better than all other platforms except for TikTok.
LinkedIn consistently beat every other competitor, including X, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat on monthly revenue, and not just in the US, where most of LinekdIn's revenue comes from but rather globally.
Microsoft knew what it was doing by acquiring this "sleeper" network and if you're servicing the professional market, you should be leveraging LinkedIn to your advantage just like consumer apps are using TikTok.
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All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.
