Looking beyond games—in-app mobile advertising revenue in 2024

Globally, advertisers spend around $1 billion per day buying ads inside mobile apps—a number that’s expected to grow to $1.5 billion per day by the year 2029, according to analysts at Statista.

If you were to visualize this number as a pie chart, it could be split into three roughly equal pieces.

A little over one-third of all mobile ad revenue goes to a small group of very large social networking apps, such as Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Another third goes to games.

And the final third goes to functional apps, which generate more than $300 million in mobile ad revenue every day. Roughly 8 out of 10 apps on iOS and Google Play fall into this group.

These apps help people:

• Navigate online marketplaces, like Amazon or Temu
• Access information, like The New York Times or Flipboard
• Learn, like Duolingo or Coursera
• Listen to music and podcasts, like Spotify and YouTube Music
• Work, like Microsoft Outlook or Slack

Given this group’s size, let’s take a closer look at which mobile app categories generate the highest ad revenue, which app categories generate the highest consumer spend, and their projected growth rates over the next five years.

Mobile advertising revenue by mobile app category in 2024

Social networking apps generated an estimated $134.4 billion in mobile ad revenue in 2024, while mobile games generated $106.5 billion from ads, according to analysts at Statista. All other apps collectively generated $111.84 billion, across the following 19 app categories:

Source: Statista

The world’s most successful functional apps supplement their advertising revenue with consumer spend, which includes one-time purchases, shopping transactions, and subscriptions.

Consumer spending by mobile app category in 2024

Non-gaming apps generated an estimated $16.47 billion in consumer spend in Q2 2024, according to an estimate from Sensor Tower. That’s about $3 billion more than the same time period last year.

In-app consumer spending is still mostly confined to wealthy countries. Roughly 80 percent of mobile consumer spend today comes from just 7 countries:

• 38.4%: United States
• 18.6%: China
• 10.5%: Japan
• 4.4%: South Korea
• 3.5%: Germany
• 3.5%: United Kingdom
• 2.1%: France

Year-over-year, consumer spending grew in the United States (+18%), China (+8%), Germany (+21%), the UK (+21%) and France (+22%), but declined in South Korea and Japan, according to analysts at Sensor Tower.

Worldwide, entertainment apps generate more than a quarter of all mobile consumer spending each quarter, according to Sensor Tower.

The 10 mobile app categories worldwide that generated the most consumer spend in Q2 2024:

Source: Sensor Tower

Quarterly subscription revenue from entertainment apps grew by nearly $1 billion year-over-year, or roughly 24 percent, according to Sensor Tower. Consumer spending inside productivity apps jumped by 42 percent year-over-year.

Looking ahead: Mobile ad revenue by app category in 2029

Mobile ad revenue will continue to grow over the next 5 years, pulling in more than $500 billion by 2029, according to analysts at Statista.

Social networking apps will make the smallest relative gains, growing from $134.4 billion in ad revenue today to $190.3 billion in 2029—a gain of 34.4 percent, according to Statista.

Ad revenue from mobile games is expected to grow 54.5 percent over the next 5 years, while ad revenue from all other app categories will grow by as much as 63 percent, analysts estimate.

Source: Statista

If you’re a mobile app developer, significant growth opportunities exist with functional apps, which are expected to grow their ad revenue faster than social networking apps or games over the next 5 years. When you’re ready to monetize your mobile app, sign up with Start.io.