App analytics company Sensor Tower (via Ars Technica) discovered something interesting while going through data for the second quarter of 2022. For the first time since the App Store opened for businesses in 2008, the majority of revenue in the United States comes from apps rather than from apps. games. According to Sensor Tower, spending on non-gaming apps is rising twice as fast as on gaming apps. Since June 2014, spending on apps that aren’t games has increased at a compound rate of 40%.
The transition to non-game apps started last May. Last month, 50.3% of US App Store spending went to non-gaming apps like Netflix and TikTok. This is partly due to the use of subscriptions for non-gaming apps. Gaming apps typically offered users simple subscription packages that have started using non-game apps. Apple has reportedly met with iOS app developers in an effort to get more of them to support the use of a recurring subscription model.
During the second quarter of this year, 400 non-game App Store apps brought in at least $1 million from consumers. That compares to just 50 such apps that reached that benchmark in Q2 2016. In fact, 61 apps in the App Store grossed $10 million in the second quarter of this year.

Keep in mind that the strong growth in subscription apps that Sensor Tower discovered only affects the App Store. In the Google Play Store, gaming apps for Android devices still make up the bulk of the incoming revenue. On that platform, gaming apps brought in $2.3 billion in revenue in the second quarter of this year, compared to $1 billion generated by non-gaming apps. In comparison, 50.3% of App Store spending went to non-game apps, while those apps accounted for just 30.3% of Google Play Store purchases in the same quarter.
Earlier this month, a report for the first half of 2022 showed that spending in the The Apple App Store and Google Play Store totaled $65 billion, up just 1% in the first half of the year. Android device owners spent $21.3 billion on the Play Store in the first half of 2022, down 7.4% from the $23 billion they spent in the first half of 2021. The App Store gross amount was $41.4 for the first six months of 2022, an increase of 22.1% year over year.
As people grow tired of dealing with the pandemic, many are no longer interested in staying home and playing games, or even streaming movies, audio, and television shows purchased from the App Store or the Google Play Store.