Topline
App analytics firm App Annie has revealed that video and live streaming apps drove a $1.2 Billion spending boom among social media users in 2020. This was in response to the pandemic, which saw an explosion in the time spent on social app and the creator economy.
According to App Annie, video and live streaming apps were very popular during the pandemic. getty
The Key Facts
According to App Annies The Evolution of Social Media report, which was published Monday, social media apps were downloaded 74 billion time worldwide in the past ten years. This includes some 4.7 billion downloads during the first half of 2021. App Annie discovered that nearly half of the mobile screen time spent in the first half of 2021 was spent on social media apps. This is a slight decrease from the approximately 770 billion hours of app usage in 2020, but still significantly higher than the pre-pandemic level of roughly 600 billion hours. App Annie discovered that video and live streaming platforms have been gaining in popularity over the past four years. This is despite the fact that they have seen a dramatic increase in time and money spent on social apps in recent years. Bigo Live and Twitch are expected to clock up 548 billion hours of live streaming in 2021. According to the report, streaming has also spawned a new creator industry on social media. This economy is based on gifting creators and not making one-off purchases. This trend is evident in the presence of apps such as TikTok and Twitch in the top ten apps to consumer spend. In the first half 2021 alone, the U.S. spent almost $1 billion on social apps, surpassing Japan, which was an early adopter.
What to Watch
App Annie predicts that by 2025, consumers will spend $17.2 million annually through social apps. This is a 30% increase in annual spending, and the $6.8 billion expected for this year will be the highest ever.
Important Background
The popularity of video and live streaming apps has increased during the pandemic. According to App Annie, Twitch's global number of active users per month has increased from just over 40 millions in January 2019, to nearly 90 million by January 2021. According to App Annie, YouTube and TikTok have outperformed Netflix and Disney+ in terms of consumers spending on social media, communication, and entertainment apps. This is another sign of the shift towards a creator-based economy. Despite streaming's rise, early social media and entertainment apps still dominate time spent. According to App Annie, which uses information from the first half 2021, YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp hold the top four spots in terms of time spent.
Big Number
$34 billion App Annie reports that this is the record-breaking amount spent on all mobile apps during the second quarter 2021. Global app spending increased by $2 billion over the previous quarter, and $7 billion over the same period last year. However, app downloads remained relatively steady.
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