Play Store sees 2x as many downloads as iOS App Store in 2015, but still lags in revenue

According to a new report out of app analytics company App Annie, Apple’s trend of bringing in more revenue via its App Store than Google does via the Play Store continued in 2015. Google, however, continued to see far more app downloads than Apple…

The report claims that Google saw twice as many apps downloaded from the Play Store as Apple saw downloaded from the App Store. This, however, is reversed when it comes to earnings from each respective app store. The iOS App Store now earns 75 percent more revenue than the Google Play Store. This is an increase over the 70 percent difference recorded during 2014.

App Annie tracks data from “more than 1 million apps,” including 94 of the top 100 app publishers across both platforms. For iOS, however, it is unable to track apps made by Apple, such as GarageBand, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and iTunes U. This means that the number of apps downloaded from the iOS App Store is presumably higher than what App Annie reports, suggesting that there’s not quite a 2x difference between iOS and Android app downloads.

Another discrepancy in data reporting comes in China. App Annie is able to track iOS app downloads in China, but not Google. With that in mind, App Annie claims that China is now the App Store’s third largest market in terms of revenue and is “within striking distance” of passing Japan for second place. In terms of downloads, China has surpassed the U.S. to move into first place. Google, however, has a very limited presence in China, showing a hugely untapped market for the company.

Last week, a report claimed that games in the App Store brought in $1 billion in revenue during December, an 18 percent increase of the $847 million brought in during December of 2014. The morale of the story here? Apple continues to bring in far more revenue via the App Store than Google does via the Play Store, despite Google seeing far more downloads overall.