With the rapid advancement of mobile technology, the global mobile market has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past decade. Sensor Tower’s newly released 2025 Mobile Market Report offers a comprehensive perspective, revealing key trends in mobile market evolution from 2014 to 2024. This article extracts the major trends from the past decade and provides insights into future developments.
1. The Maturity and Growth Trends of the Mobile Market
Over the past ten years, the mobile market has transitioned from rapid expansion to gradual maturation. Sensor Tower’s data indicates that from 2014 to 2024, global consumer spending in the mobile market continued to surge, particularly in in-app purchases (IAP) and subscription revenues outside the gaming sector. In 2024, global IAP and subscription revenues grew by 13% year-over-year, reaching $150 billion. The U.S. led the global market with $52 billion in consumer spending.
In stark contrast to the continuous rise in consumer spending, mobile app downloads have declined for four consecutive years. However, certain markets, such as Indonesia, mainland China, and Mexico, still exhibited positive growth. This suggests that while the global mobile market is approaching saturation, emerging markets still hold growth potential.
2. The Rise of Non-Gaming Apps
Non-gaming apps have demonstrated outstanding performance in the mobile market over the past decade. In 2014, non-gaming apps generated just $3.5 billion in IAP revenue, but by 2024, this figure had skyrocketed to $69 billion. This growth trend reflects users’ increasing demand for and reliance on non-gaming applications.
In 2024, non-gaming IAP revenue grew by 25% year-over-year, adding nearly $14 billion — far exceeding the $9 billion increase recorded in 2023. This growth was primarily driven by strong performances in entertainment, productivity, and photo & video apps. These categories have attracted substantial user spending through high-quality content and services.
Moreover, 2024 marked the breakthrough year for AI-powered applications. The IAP revenue of AI chatbots and AI art generators surged from $30 million in 2022 to nearly $1.3 billion in 2024. Downloads also grew from around 10 million in 2021 to nearly 1.5 billion in 2024.
The U.S. dominates the generative AI app market, accounting for 45% of global revenue, followed by the UK, Germany, Japan, and Canada. In 2024, 16 different generative AI apps achieved over $10 million in consumer spending, while 35 surpassed 10 million downloads.
AI technology is now widely applied across various mobile sectors, including gaming, productivity, utilities, photo & video, education, entertainment, design, lifestyle, social networking, health, and fitness. This underscores the increasing integration of AI capabilities into apps across verticals, catering to users’ demand for intelligent and personalized experiences.
3. The Slowing Growth of the Gaming Market
While gaming remains the dominant force in mobile consumer spending, its growth has slowed over the past decade.
In 2024, consumer spending in the gaming sector reached $80.88 billion, but year-over-year growth was only 4%. This trend is particularly evident in certain Asian markets with a strong gaming focus, where growth has been more moderate or even slightly declining. However, emerging markets such as Mexico, India, and Thailand drove much of the sector’s growth, with consumer spending rising by 21%, 17%, and 16%, respectively. Turkey led with a 28% increase, while Saudi Arabia saw 14% growth.
In terms of game genres, simulation and puzzle games dominated downloads, each accounting for 20%. Despite a significant 12.5% decline in arcade game downloads, they still held a 19% market share. Lifestyle and action games faced steeper declines, whereas strategy games saw a notable download increase (+14.5%).
Strategy games performed exceptionally well in revenue generation. Although they accounted for only 4% of total downloads, they contributed 21.4% of total gaming revenue. Within subcategories, arcade platformer/running games topped downloads (8.34%), followed by simulation subcategories, including simulator games (6.17%) and driving/flying simulators (4.98%), reflecting players’ preference for immersive, task-based gameplay.
4. The Continuous Evolution of the Mobile Market
Overall, the entertainment, productivity, and social interaction segments within the non-gaming app sector will continue to exhibit strong growth. While the gaming market’s expansion has slowed, significant opportunities remain. Additionally, emerging markets will maintain high growth rates.
As user demand for high-quality content and services continues to rise, developers must innovate to deliver more engaging products and experiences. Despite the mobile market’s gradual maturation over the past decade, the rapid development and adoption of AI technologies will further enhance device capabilities and application scenarios, ushering in a new era of mobile market growth.
