Generative AI apps broke the 1 billion milestone in 2024, with 1.49 billion cumulative downloads worldwide, and nearly $1.3 billion in revenue from in-app purchases, according to new data from Sensor Tower.
To put that growth in perspective, generative AI apps were virtually nonexistent just two years ago. In 2022, generative AI apps pulled in just 119 million downloads worldwide and $30.1 million from in-app revenue. The market is now 12x bigger for downloads, and 42x bigger for in-app revenue.
Mobile developers are integrating AI into their apps (or saying they are) in huge numbers. Apps that mentioned “AI” in their name, subtitle, or app description were downloaded 17 billion times in 2024, according to Sensor Tower.
ChatGPT is far and away the most popular generative AI app on the market, leading in both downloads and in-app purchases in every major country globally in 2024 except China, where it’s not available. When ChatGPT launched its mobile app in May 2023, it took just five months for the company to reach 50 million monthly active users (MAU), which represents one of the fastest mobile adoption rates in history.
By comparison, Temu, Disney+ and Reddit all took longer to reach 50 million MAU—5 months for Temu, 12 months for Disney+ and 62 months for Reddit.
People spent an estimated 7.7 billion hours chatting with AI bots in 2024, an increase of 347 percent from the previous year, according to Sensor Tower.
India leads mobile downloads globally
Zooming out to a global level, India remains the undisputed world leader in mobile app downloads, while Americans spend more money on in-app purchases than any other country,
Indians downloaded an estimated 24.36 billion mobile apps and spent 1.1 trillion hours on their phones in 2024, according to Sensor Tower.
With an estimated 650 million smartphone users in the country, that means the average Indian mobile user downloaded 37 apps and spent 1,700 hours on their phones last year. More than half of smartphone users in India are under the age of 24, according to Start.io data.
The United States is just as mobile-obsessed as India, with Americans downloading an estimated 12.3 billion mobile apps and spending 323 billion hours on their phones, according to Sensor Tower.
Back-of-the-napkin math: With an estimated 300 million smartphone users in the U.S. in 2024, that means the average American downloaded 41 mobile apps, and spent 1,075 hours on their phones.
Where the United States really shines is in mobile in-app purchases, with Americans spending an estimated $52.4 billion inside apps in 2024, according to Sensor Tower. That’s around $175 per person, per year.
Globally, people spent an estimated $150 billion on mobile in-app purchases in 2024, with about a third of that revenue coming from the U.S. alone.
Mobile games generate more in-app revenue than any other category by far. In 2024, people spent about $80 billion in-app on mobile games, and $69.2 billion on all other types of apps.
Video apps—a category that includes apps like like Disney+, Max, and WeTV—pulled in $12 billion in mobile subscription revenue in 2024, followed closely behind by in-app spending inside social media apps.
In 2024, five mobile apps crossed into the mobile monetization hall of fame, generating more than $1 billion in mobile in-app revenue in a single year. These included the games Brawl Stars, Dungeon & Fighter, Last War, and Whiteout Survival, and the Chinese streaming video app WeTV.
There are now 26 mobile apps that have managed to generate more than $1 billion in mobile, in-app revenue in a single year, according to Sensor Tower:
- Clash of Clans (2014 or earlier)
- Puzzle & Dragons (2014 or earlier)
- Monster Strike (2015)
- Honor of Kings (2017)
- Netflix (2018)
- Fate/Grand Order (2018)
- Tinder (2019)
- Coin Master (2020)
- Game for Peace (2020)
- Pokemon Go (2020)
- PUBG Mobile (2020)
- Roblox (2020)
- TikTok (2020)
- Candy Crush Saga (2021)
- Disney+ (2021)
- Garena Free Fire (2021)
- Genshin Impact (2021)
- YouTube (2021)
- Google One (2022)
- Monopoly Go (2023)
- Royal Match (2023)
- Brawl Stars (2024)
- Dungeon & Fighter (2024)
- Last War (2024)
- WeTV (2024)
- Whiteout Survival (2024)
