Despite TikTok’s issues with the administration of President Donald Trump, or maybe because of them, the video creation platform was the highest-earning non-game application in the third quarter of 2020, across Google Play and the iTunes App Store, according to mobile app intelligence provider Sensor Tower.
The company said in its third-quarter report that its figures include the iOS version of Douyin in China, where TikTok is not available, but they do not include revenue from in-app advertising.
This past three-month period marked the second consecutive quarter for TikTok as the top-grossing non-game app, and consumer spending in the app surged 800% year-over-year.
Overall, spending in mobile apps for the quarter was $29.3 billion, up 32% from the second quarter of 2019.
Spending rose 31% in the App Store, to approximately $19 billion, and Google Play gross revenue of $10.3 billion was up 33.8% year-over-year.
App Store downloads were up roughly 2.5 percent from the year-ago quarter, at 8.2 billion, while Google Play’s total of 28.3 billion represented a 31% gain.
First-time app installs globally rose 23.3% during the third quarter, to 36.5 billion.
The top-grossing non-game apps in the third quarter of 2020 were:
- TikTok (including Douyin for iOS in China)
- YouTube
- Tinder
- Tencent Video
- Disney+
The most-downloaded non-game apps during the period were:
- TikTok (including Douyin for iOS in China)
- Zoom
Sensor Tower mobile insights strategist Stephanie Chan wrote in the report, “Due to the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 has already seen consumer behavior impacted in unexpected and potentially far-reaching ways. As we enter the fourth quarter, new trends will undoubtedly emerge, as will new standout apps, some driven by platform innovations such as home-screen customization on iOS.”