Lensa AI Slipped In - The Highest Earning Apps in December

Ariel Ariel
1/27/23

This is a single insight from This Week in Apps - The Top (isn't) Stagnant. Check out the full article for more insights.


Lensa AI Slipped In - The Highest Earning Apps in December

And last in my rankings are the highest-earning apps in the US, which I also rounded up this week. And unlike all the lists we've looked at so far, this one's the most boring, and by far.

Let's see if I can find the interesting bits before you yawn.

Highest-earning mobile apps in December 2022 in the US

TikTok was, again, the highest-earning app in the US earning $55M in net revenue according to our estimates. Almost yawn, until you read the news and see that congress is potentially discussing a ban on TikTok in the US.

I doubt that'd happen, though. Many have talked about banning TikTok in the last few years, and it seems like no matter what they do, even lie under oath, that ban hasn't come, so it probably isn't. But if it is... That's millions of dollars that would remain in users' pockets instead of flowing to Apple and Google, in addition to TikTok, every month.

That's a crazy thought!

YouTube came in second, adding $50M of net revenue to its bottom line in December. Slightly higher when compared to November, but not by that much.

But I promised interesting, so let's skip to that.

LensaAI, the generative AI avatar maker that went viral, made its way into our rankings. It scored 7th place on the App Store's list and the same overall with its fresh haul of $26M of net revenue.

I don't expect to see Lensa on this list in January because that whole trend came and went, but it's great to see this list isn't set in stone. Even if it looks like it is.

Crunchyroll was another "new" entrant to the list, squeezing into last place on the Google Play side of things with $3M in net revenue. This isn't the first time we see Crunchyroll, the streamers for anime, in this list, but it's been quite a while.

Together, the top 10 highest-earning apps earned a combined total of $340M of net revenue from the US in December. I expected to see a better month for streamers as we have in previous years, but the lack of exciting content and the desire to IRL put an end to this trend. RIP.

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The insights in this report come right out of our App Intelligence platform, which offers access to download and revenue estimates, installed SDKs, and more! Learn more about the tools or schedule a demo with our team to get started.

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All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.


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