App Stores: Games Not The Biggest Thing For First Time Ever Last Year
- Editor OGN Daily
- 50 minutes ago
- 2 min read
In-app purchases on non-gaming applications outweighed those made in games, indicating that the things that many of us are using our mobiles for have shifted.
Whilst what people are buying has shifted, the business of buying time-consuming content to fill your phone’s screen continues its relentless rise, with users spending a whopping and record breaking $167.4 billion on in-app purchases in 2025, according to the latest Sensor Tower data. However, according to the same State of Mobile 2026 report, in-app purchases across non-gaming applications actually outweighed those made in games for the first time ever.
It has always been the case (and no doubt will continue to be so) that there’s still billions of dollars to be made from mobile games. But worldwide downloads dropped from 54.3 billion in 2024 to 50.4 billion last year, as in-app gaming purchases broadly flatlined.
Conversely, in-app purchases across non-gaming applications grew significantly to a record $85.6 billion, and - as is becoming a theme for many stories where the amount of cash involved is booming (even in waste management) AI was behind a good chunk of the rise. As downloads across generative AI mobile apps more than doubled last year, so did in-app revenues, with users spending $5 billion while using apps like ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Grok.
Whilst AI is making giant, beneficial strides in the medical world (and elsewhere), we now know that pet projects like Musk's Grok need to be treated with suspicion. If you need an example of the dangers of trusting AI - particularly chatbots financed by eccentric narcissists - this is it. The Grok chatbot was caught making a series of absurd claims about the billionaire - like declaring he was better looking than Brad Pitt, fitter than any other human, and would rise from the dead faster than Jesus.
