This Week in Apps - Non-Native Development is on the Rise
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. Non-Native Development Hit a New Peak!
The native vs non-native development debate has been raging for years now.
On the one side, we have non-native frameworks like React Native and Flutter, which offer reactive cross-platform development. On the other, we have new frameworks from Apple and Google that aim to simplify the development process with a similar paradigm that's native and performant.
As Apple's and Google's solutions continue to mature, we'd expect to see a drop in the number of new app releases powered by React Native and Flutter.
Is that really the case?
No. Not really. Quite the opposite.
I used Appfigures Explorer to pull and analyze all new apps and games released every year since 2020, comparing the share of apps using Flutter, React Native, and native apps. I chose those two because they are the most popular development SDKs across both stores.
Going back to 2020, the data shows that new apps and games powerd by React Native or Flutter accounted for 7% of all app releases in the year. In more absolute terms, more than 125K apps and games using React Native and Flutter were released to the App Store and Google Play.
That figure grew to 12% in 2021, and fast forward to 2024, SDK usage data shows that 15% of new mobile apps and games were built using one of the two non-native frameworks.
All things considered, 15% is still a small number, but seeing it double within just a few years - all while Apple and Google are hard at work to simplify development with SwiftUI and Jetpack Compose, is certainly an interesting trend.
I took it a step further and looked at the revenue and downloads generated by these apps. In the last year, Appfigures Intelligence shows those apps generated nearly $8B in net revenue - what publishers keep after store fees - and 6B downloads. Those represent about 9% of all net revenue generated across the stores and 6% of all downloads.
Small but significant numbers, which I expect to increase significantly in 2025.
2. Apple (Finally) Got Serious About Streaming and Expanded to Android
Apple is finally taking its streaming service serious and has made it possible to subscribe to Apple TV+ on Android devices.
This might seem like a small and intuitive move, but Apple TV is only the second Apple-owned app to monetize on Android out of two. Apple Music is the first.
Streaming via mobile is a multi-billion dollar industry and Apple wants to take a bite of that. In 2024, Android users paid Disney+ and Max, the top two streamers, $840M through Google Play.
Apple TV on Google Play started accepting payments the week of Valentine's day and according to Appfigures Intelligence, has already seen users spending a little over $600K. That's before Google takes its fee.
It's not a big haul, but considering Apple isn't a big name in streaming, even on the App Store. It's a good start and a foundation to build on with original content, becasause content is still king. The majority of that money, a little under half, comes from the US with the rest coming from more than 25 other countries.
The revenue is a result of 2.6M fresh downloads, according to our estimates, which Apple TV saw from Google Play since February 14th. A quick back-of-the-napkin calculation puts Apple TV's Android subscribers at around 60K, which means those downloads aren't converting very well - yet.
Growth will take some time, considering Apple's limited selection of shows, but as the collection grows, so will revenue, something I'm sure Apple is already hard at work on.
3. Grok Pulls X's Revenue Up After a Slow January
X is unique in that demand for its app and revenue from its app are as guided by basic business rules as by politics. But something interesting happened in February that shows business is (still) business.
I've been following X's revenue as the first social media platform to attempt to monetize its users, and here's February's check-in.
According to Appfigures Intelligence, X saw $17M of net revenue, what Elon gets to keep after paying Apple and Google their fees, in February. That's an increase of nearly 17% month-over-month.
But, why now?
Easy answer: AI.
In February, xAI rolled out Grok 3, an update to its ChatGPT competitor that brought the two much closer together. The launch was highly popularized on the platform by the team and Elon which resulted in Grok's standalone app rising to the top of the App Store for several days.
But it wasn't just Grok's standalone app.
Grok 3 was initially only available to X Premium Plus users, the most expensive subscription tier of the platform. Grok's standalone app later added an in-app purchase that doesn't require going through X, but I suspect the majority of paying users are subscribed via X.
Politics aside, X's revenue rose as a result of a new feature, something I expect to see more of this year. And not just from X.
I expect revenue to continue to grow as Grok continues to compete with ChatGPT, but also thanks to steep subscription increases from X, in some cases nearly doubling the price, which are rolling out now.
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4. TikTok Tumbles but Still On Top - The Highest Earning Apps in February
February was a weird month in apps and now that it's behind us, let's see if TikTok's maintained its top position even though it was banned in the US, whether AI is making more money, and if streaming is still a money maker.
Hint, it's a yes to all.
TikTok was the highest-earning mobile app in the world in February according to Appfigures Intelligence - even though it was banned in the US for most of the month, and that's it's second biggest source of revenue after China.
But the ban did come at a cost. Our estimates show TikTok's global net revenue dropped 67% from its record-high in December, and the last full month of revenue we have to compare to, down to $200M in February. That means creators took a hit of nearly $50M, which is more than most apps make in a year!
Chief rival YouTube came in second in February with $150M estimated net revenue - that's what Google gets to keep after Apple's fee. YouTube's revenue has been on an upward trend which helped it secure the second spot for a very long time now, but it's just not as steep as TikTok's.
Disney+, Tinder, and Max round out the top five highest earning apps in the world in February - the exact same set from January, but each took a revenue hit.
While the top half of our chart didn't change, the bottom completely changed.
Duolingo dropped out of the top 10 as New Year's resolutions faded, as did Tencent Video, and replaced by Peacock and LinkedIn. It's interesting to see Peacock, which is only available in the US, manage to rank on the same list as global streamers like Disney+ and Max.
Appfigures Intelligence shows that together, the top 10 highest-earning apps in the world drew 966M of net revenue from the App Store and Google Play. That's a little under the 1B the group has reached in previous months with the drop directly attributed to the hit TikTok took during the month.
It's back now, so I don't expect this to happen again.
5. Is AI Here to Stay? The Most Downloaded Apps in February
AI was at full blast in February, maintaining its January run. If you didn't notice, AI is red hot right now and these numbers prove it. But, did it make the most downloaded chart in February?
Yes, yes it did! Let's have a look at the ranks.
According to Appfigures Intelligence, TikTok was the most downloaded mobile app in the world in February. That's after it was banned in the US for much of the month. Although the US is big for TikTok's revenue it isn't for downloads, so this isn't really shocking, but interesting to see the difference between downloads (growth) and revenue (monetization).
The ban did knock down TikTok's downloads when compared to January, but it's back now, so it'll recover.
Chief rival Instagram came in second with 42M downloads. That's lower than January's haul as well but February is a shorter month so it's not terrible.
Normally, this is the part I'd list the remaining three apps that round out the top five and say they're exactly like last month but not this time!
ChatGPT broke a long monotonous run for Meta's trio, climbing two spots from January into the 3rd place in February and pushing Facebook and WhatsApp down with 36M estimated downloads. It looks like DeepSeek and Grok didn't hurt the OG but rather helped it grow even more.
That said, DeepSeek also made our top chart, coming in at 10th place with 20M estimated downloads. It's not common for an app to make it into our chart as soon as it's released, but DeepSeek's journey was nothing but common. Even though the hype is gone, DeepSeek is still seeing about 300K downloads every day.
The rest of the chart is mainly unchanged from January but being a shorter month, the total is lower. Our estimates show the top 10 most downloaded apps in the world made their way into 299M phones in February, which is more than a smidge lower than January.
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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.
