This Week in Apps - Up and Up and Up

This Week in Apps is a short, no-fluff, round-up of interesting things that happened in the mobile industry. Here are our top highlights.

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U.S. Revenue Index (vs. 30 days ago)

Insights

1. More Use Apps to Watch the Olympics Than Ever Before!

As the world gathers to witness the grandeur of the Olympic Games, a new trend is emerging in how fans are tuning in to watch their favorite events.

Maybe not that new... Everything is moving in-app.

Here in the US, NBC's Peacock is the exclusive streamer of the Olympic Games. Historically, sports really helped Peacock gain new paying subscribers and stay ahead of rival Paramount+. Will the Olympics continue the tradition?

I should really be asking how much...

And the answer is - A lot! So much that Peacock ended July with the most revenue the app has ever earned in a single month and a massive leap from June's revenue.

According to our App Intelligence, Peacock's net revenue from the App Store and Google Play rose 21% to $40M in July. That's net, which means what NBC gets to keep after paying Apple and Google their fees.

The majority of the revenue came from the App Store, which outpaces Google Play by about 3x.

This growth sprout comes after three fairly flat months that saw revenue decreasing from its new year high and stagnating until July.

I suspect August will also be a great month for Peacock.

Another app that's surged thanks to the Olympics is the official app for the Olympic Games.

Sounds like an easy conclusion to draw, right? But that wasn't the case during the last Olympic Games or before - even though the app has been around since 2014.

According to our App Intelligence, downloads of the official app more than doubled when compared to the previous Olympic Games back in 2021 (offset by COVID), adding nearly 11M new users since the games started at the end of July.

In comparison, the app was downloaded just 3.3M times, according to our estimates, in the same period in 2021. That's nearly 4x more people. And as you'd expect from downloads, Google Play is in the lead - and not by a small amount. There are roughly two downloads from Google Play for every download from the App Store. This wasn't the case in 2021 where the numbers were fairly even.

It's worth noting that the official app doesn't stream the games live but rather links to the regional partner that's streaming them, but does have video clips, schedules, and news. This simply reinforces the trend we've been seeing for several years now - more things are going in-app. I don't see that ending any time soon.

2. AllTrails Revenue Hits All-Time High Ahead of Being Sherlocked by Apple

iOS 18 is about to roll out to the public, and with it, an update to Apple Maps that brings topographic maps and trail networks. A welcome addition that rival Google Maps doesn't have. Also, a feature that AllTrails, which is currently the 59th highest-earning app in the US App Store, has perfected.

Can AllTrails weather this storm?

To answer that question I went back a few years and looked at our App Intelligence, which shows very strong seasonality for the app's revenue that's focused on the month of July. Revenue builds up to July and then slowly slopes down after. If you were curious when everyone goes hiking, now you know.

According to our estimates, AllTrails saw $2.3M of net revenue in July of 2020 from the App Store and Google Play. Net means what's left after Apple's and Google's fees.

Interestingly enough, at that time, Google Play was earning AllTrails more than the App Store. We don't see that often. But by 2021, that trend reversed.

Growth slowed down, and revenue dropped a bit, in 2021. That makes sense, unfortunately, but it rose every year since. 2024 marks AllTrails' best season to date, with an estimated haul of $9.1M of net revenue. This time, the App Store contributed the majority of the revenue - $7.3M.

But waaaait, what about downloads? When we talk about sherlocking it isn't revenue that's the problem but rather discovery.

So I looked at the trend of downloads, and to my surprise, it didn't exactly look like revenue.

AllTrail's downloads generally follow the same seasonality we see with revenue but not with the same precision. While 2024 followed the general trend, downloads early in the year were higher and July's peak wasn't as high as last year.

Revenue growing out of sync with downloads could be a good thing for a subscription app because it means it's able to turn existing free users into paying users (or get them to pay more).

Apple's addition of trail maps to its built-in app will likely hurt discovery and in turn decrease downloads or increase AllTrail's user acquisition cost. But seeing how it's able to turn free users into paying users, I think it will be able to weather this storm and there's even the potential for AllTrails to thrive as the "advanced" trails app that Apple didn't build.

3. Why is CapCut Cutting Its Free Tier?

Not many know this but TikTok, yes, the TikTok, offers a video editing app that's been growing quietly and is now the highest-earning app in its group, eclipsing incumbents like Facetune, Splice, and Picsart.

CapCut started out free and then added an optional subscription level back in 2022. Now, CapCut is going all-in on subscriptions and as of the weekend, is dropping its free tier.

Why would CapCut do this to its users?

The easy (and unpleasant) answer is that they simply don't need them...

That sounds pretty harsh, so I have to add that I don't know if that's the case. However, looking at CapCut's revenue, I can see that this guess starts to make a lot of sense.

According to our estimates, CapCut's net revenue hit $17.6M in July, an all-time high for the app. This is net, which means it's what Bytedance gets to keep after forking over store fees to Apple and Google.

July wasn't just an all-time high for revenue but also for month-over-month growth, which shot up 32%.

And while July was great, CapCut's revenue growth has been great since it switched on monetization. It grew to $1M in monthly revenue in just four months, $5M 8 months later, and $10M 6 months after that.

CapCut's growth also slowed down its competitors, and the combination eventually gave CapCut the lead over one of its strongest rivals, Facetune, earlier this year.

Like many before it, CapCut's free tier was an investment Bytedance made to establish itself in a crowded but lucrative niche. Now that it's the leader and revenue growth is healthy, that investment can pay back.

I expect a big outcry from the community that CapCut will likely ignore without consequences.

4. ChatGPT Scores Its Biggest Month of Revenue Ever

ChatGPT just ended its best month of revenue on mobile. Ever!

You've probably heard me say that before, and that's because ChatGPT's revenue has been on an up-and-to-the-right trend ever since the seemingly simple app launched last year. Well, the trend is just picking up speed.

According to our estimates, ChatGPT brought in $28M of net revenue from the App Store and Google Play in July. The app's best month of revenue. And that's net, which means what OpenAI gets to keep after Apple and Google take their fees.

That translates into nearly 2,000,000 paying subscribers - a new record for the app.

The majority of the revenue, as well as the healthy month-over-month growth, comes from the App Store. Our App Intelligence shows the App Store was responsible for 83% of the revenue and rose 20% from June.

ChatGPT's revenue was growing at a healthy pace all year but the introduction of GPT-4o kicked it into high gear, pushing monthly growth up to 40% back in May, and while that's slowed down a bit, it's still on a similar enough trajectory.

I expect the rollout of the new voice model next month to push that even more.

5. X Recovers After Months of Revenue Decline

X's mobile revenue has been declining for several months now after peaking back in March leading to the obvious question - is X's growth done?

Luckily for X, which I no longer call Twitter, July was a good month. Revenue rebounded and also rose to a new higher.

According to our estimates, users spent $12.7M in X's mobile apps in July. Of that, Elon and co took $8.9M after Apple and Google took their fees.

The App Store was responsible for the majority of revenue - 77% - and Google Play for the rest. The US is the major earner for X, but I always found the runner-up, Japan, to be a nice surprise. We don't usually see that with apps.

July's haul marks a 20% month-over-month growth, which is impressive after the slump X has seen. It also marks a healthy 8% increase over X's previous all-time high back in March, and a 424% increase over January of 2023.

So, things are finally looking good. But...

Being on an upward trend is great, but the reality is that X's revenue isn't nearly as high as it can be, and that's a problem X has to figure out.

I say that because other social platforms that followed X's strategy are making quite a lot more. Our App Intelligence shows that in July, Snapchat raked in $32M and Instagram $23M of net revenue (after store fees), which is 3-4x higher than X. Both started monetizing much later.

I've also added Telegram to this comparison because it's trying to be a social network and while it didn't beat X just yet, it's very close with $7.4M estimated net revenue.

App Intelligence for Everyone!

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.