Most people think Gmail is free, and to many it is, but as soon as you need additional storage, everything changes.
On the App Store, Gmail offers several tiers via in-app purchases that start at just $1.99/mo. But at Google scale, those add up quick!
Gmail just wrapped up its highest quarter of revenue, growing a whopping 26% quarter-over-quarter. That's Gmail's second-highest revenue growth ever since the app's revenue got into the double-digit millions.
Consumers spent $109M in Q2, according to Appfigures Intelligence, roughly $23M more than Q1's haul. That's the biggest absolute jump for the app in the App Store. And I should say, this data is only relevant to the App Store because on Android Google isn't going through Google Play for payments and skips paying itself a fee.
Although it's not TikTok money, our estimates show that users spent $252M on in-app purchases so far this year and only about 44% of that came from the US. The rest spread over a looooooong list of countries where all countries have a single-digit share. And what's even more interesting is that even the smaller countries are paying thousands for their email.
What about the competition? Gmail doesn't really have competitors, but I do want a point of comparison, so I looked at the performance of Yahoo Mail. Yes, that's still a thing.
Yahoo Mail earned $2.8M in net revenue from the App Store this year, according to our estimates, which is about $2.8M more than I expected. But still nothing in comparison to Gmail.
It's true, Gmail is in a league of its own.
December saw a curious split: downloads dropped 2% while revenue sat at $1.3B. ChatGPT and TikTok dominated both charts as the mobile industry enters a new maturity phase.
Wall Street bet $2 billion on Polymarket, and downloads surged 1,172% in December. The prediction market banned in 2022 is now where Wall Street looks for signals.