Users to spend $102 billion per year in app-stores by 2020

App Annie, an app analytics company, is predicting that yearly global app store revenue will exceed $102 billion by 2020. That $102 billion is the total consumers will spend on mobile apps via stores across all app stores including Apple’s App Store, Google Play, 3rd party Android stores, and others including Windows, Amazon, etc.

In the next 4 years the Asia Pacific region will see the strongest growth in terms of revenue growth, while EMEA and the Americas will not be far behind. At the moment economies like the US, Japan and Western Europe account for more than two-thirds of app store revenue, however by 2020 emerging economies will account for 40% of the total spend.

One of the reasons for the potential increase outside of the US, EU and Japan is the increasing affordability of very capable smartphones. By 2020, today’s flagship devices will have moved into the mid-range (or even lower).

As we enter into the second half of 2016, the global mobile app market is set to reach some $51 billion in gross revenue, across all app stores. While large markets including the United States, Japan and China are key to the overall app revenue growth, App Annie is also predicting that there will be fast growth in markets like India, Indonesia, Mexico and Argentina.

If these predictions turn out to be accurate then it would seem that there is still massive potential for app developers to make money from writing innovative and interesting apps. If you want to get started writing a game for Android then check out our guide to writing a simple 2D platform game in Unity. If you are unsure about which platform to develop for, iOS or Android, then you should read our developing for Android vs developing for iOS guide.

Finally don’t forget that the perks of being an app developer aren’t just money and kudos, there is much more!