TikTok, PUBG Mobile emerge as top downloaded, highest earning apps globally: Sensor Tower

Even though TikTok and PUBG are banned in India, they have emerged as the most downloaded and highest-earning apps in third quarter of 2021. According to a report from Sensor Tower, ByteDance’s TikTok and Krafton’s PUBG Mobile were the best-performing apps in terms of downloads and earning.

Both TikTok and PUBG Mobile were the highest-earning apps across both Apple App Store and Google Play Store in the third quarter of 2021.

Popular short video making app, TikTok has emerged as the highest earning app worldwide while the PUBG Mobile remained the highest-grossing mobile game.

The two apps reportedly has also recorded the highest number of downloads in their respective category.

As per the report, consumer spending on TikTok and PUBG Mobile experienced a 41 percent year-on-year (YoY) and 11 percent YoY growth respectively. The revenues for TikTok are calculated after including Douyin on iOS – the apps’ China-only version.

The consumer spending on in-app purchases, premium apps, and subscriptions across Apple App Store and Google Play Store grew about 15.1 percent YoY to $33.6 billion (around Rs 2.49 lakh crores).

The report also added that this growth was amplified by Google Play that witnessed consumer spending growth of 18.6 percent to $12.1 billion (around Rs 89,800 crores).

The second highest earing app after TikTok is Manga reader Piccoma that saw a 130 percent YoY growth followed by YouTube that registered a consumer spending  growth of 17 percent year-on-year. Google One and Disney+ landed on the fourth and fifth place respectively, in terms of top highest-earning apps.

TikTok also crossed a total of 3 billion downloads worldwide.

On the other hand, PUBG Mobile (including the Chinese version “Game for Peace) took the top spot in the gaming category,  in terms of consumer spending.”

Consumer spending on PUBG Mobile grow to 11 percent year-on-year. The second place top earner is Genshin Impact followed by Niantic’s Pokemon Go and Roblox Corp’s Roblox.

However, both the apps registered a 3.5 percent less first-time installs of mobile games as compared to last year. This has brought the download numbers to 13.6 billion installs across both stores from 14.1 billion in Q3 2020.