Whether you want to accept it or not, Apple's App Store is more successful than any other digital store that sells applications and games. The platform has managed to outsell its rivals such as the Google Play store and Steam. 

According to a report by Sensor Tower, Apple's App Store managed to rake in $22.6 billion in worldwide gross app revenue, while the Google Play Store earned $11.8 billion. 

What's interesting to note is that Apple managed to generate double the revenue with half the number of downloads. 

© Sensor Tower

Apple's iOS store has been consistently generating more revenue than its competition. In fact, when one compares numbers, historically Android users spend less on apps than iOS users. There could be a number of reasons for this, such as other Android app stores like the Samsung Store, the Amazon App Store, and others. 

It's obvious knowledge that there are significantly more Android smartphones in the world, but Google's Play store still managed to remain behind Apple's offering. However, one should also note that Google's Play Store is not available in China, the world's largest market for smartphones. 

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Last year, Apple earned $38.5 billion from the App Store while Google Play could only manage to earn $20.1 billion. Sensor Tower estimates that consumer spending has increased in 2018 by 26.8 percent on iOS, whereas it's up by 29.7 percent on Google Play. 

This growth in spending may have many reasons, but it can be attributed to players like Tencent Video, Netflix, and other services. App revenues have seen a huge rise thanks to subscription services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. In fact, Netflix was 2017's top non-game app by revenue. 

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Game spending is considered to have a huge chunk of the revenue, thanks to popular games such as PUBG, Fortnite, and others. Apple's App Store earned $16.3 billion from games alone, while Google Play earned $10.3 billion in 2017. 

© Sensor Tower

It could be argued that Apple's platform earns more due to its presence in China, however, Sensor Tower reports that even if China is removed from the equation, the App Store would have earned a 30 percent gross revenue than Google's Play store. 

If you're interested to know more about Apps and its revenues, you can read the original report by Sensor Tower here (https://sensortower.com/blog/app-revenue-and-downloads-1h-2018). 

Source: Sensor Tower