This Week in Apps - Betting Big

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. The Numbers Behind Kalshi's and Polymarket's Mobile Surge

Election day has come and past and to say this time around was aaaaaaall different would be an understatement. Something I found interesting was the use of betting markets as a proxy for who could win, even as they countered what traditional polling suggested.

Now that we know the results we know the bets were pretty accurate.

Polymarket and Kalshi are those platforms with the former dominating much of the news for the last month or so while the latter got more popular on the App Store.

Kalshi is the "oldest" of the pair. Polymarket's mobile app is very young, released just a couple of months ago back in September, as the platform was getting more publicity.

According to our App Intelligence, Kalshi wasn't very popular for much of its time on the App Store and Google Play, getting a total of 195K downloads between when it launched and the end of September. But that's when things really turned around and also when Polymarket launched.

We estimate that since the beginning of October, the pair has made its way into 1.3M devices through the App Store and Google Play.

Kalshi was responsible for the majority of the downloads, roughly 865K, according to our estimates, which came through the App Store at a rate of roughly one to ten vs Google Play. Polymarket's downloads were a bit lower at 365K, also led by the App Store but with a smaller multiplier.

The new demand surged both to the top of the App Store yesterday, election day, where we estimate the two saw nearly 250K downloads in a single day!

The pair is still ranked 1st and second in the US App Store but with the elections behind us I'm sure the surge will subside. But... both offer lots of other things to bet on, so they could maintain some traction. So although it wasn't the mobile app that made either popular, it's the mobile apps that could maintain their success.

2. X's Mobile Revenue is At an All-Time High

X was at the center of this election cycle. I know some of you love it and some hate it so I won't touch on anything related to that. Instead, I'm going to continue with my monthly check-ins on X's revenue that I've been doing for several years now.

If you've been following along you know that X's revenue has seen its fair share of ups and downs this year. October has seen its biggest up yet.

According to our App Intelligence, X's revenue hit a new record in October, crossing $13M in monthly net revenue, what Elon gets to keep after Apple and Google take their cut.

While it may seem surprising, this is only the third month X's revenue has been in the double digit range. August was the first month for double-digit revenues with a tad over $10M, according to our estimates.

So far this year, X has brought in $89M of net revenue, according to our estimates. Primarily from the US App Store, which isn't really a surprise. What is surprising is that the incomplete revenue in 2024 is already 65% higher than revenue for all of last year.

The US continues to be X's biggest revenue earner, by far, and Japan continues to be its second, albeit at a muuuuuch smaller scale.

It's become impossible to tell how X's revenue will perform because it's not really based on growth or performance but rather on emotion, perception, and politics. For now at least, it's growing.

3. Most Streaming Apps Aren't Growing - One Winner Surprised Me

I've been watching Disney+ and Hulu since the announcement that they're no longer taking new subscribers through the App Store. As expected, the pair's rankings in the top grossing list, where the two used to be in the top 10 for pretty much ever, have been slipping.

That led me to analyze the top streamers and see who's gaining market share and who's losing it. The results surprised me a bit.

I analyzed Disney+, Hulu, Peacock, Paramount+, and Amazon Prime Video, and Max. The six have been the top earners for quite some time.

Instead of just looking at new revenue I compared new revenue across all six to see who has the biggest share and also how that share compares to where it was last year.

I've been following the streaming industry for several years now and fully expected growth to decline a bit from where it was last year, but I didn't expect it to go into the negative for most of these big names.

The analysis, which used net revenue from our App Intelligence, shows the share of revenue of four of the six apps declined below where it was in January of 2023. The quartet includes Max, Paramount, Hulu, and DIsney+. The decline ranged from 1.1% for Max to a whopping 2.3% for Disney+.

No wonder Disney doesn't want to compete in the App Store - it just couldn't figure it out.

Where did the share go? Right to Peacock and Amazon Prime Video. Yes, Amazon Prime Video, which was fairly unknown to most for a looong time. That's changed!

Our estimates show Peacock's share of revenue rose a healthy 2.7% as of October and Amazon's an even healthier 4.3%. And unsurprisingly, both recorded all-time high revenue in October. Peacock ended the month with $50M of net revenue and Amazon with $12M.

A very different scale from that of Disney+ and Max, but with the big ones fumbling growth and the smaller ones aggressively seeking it, the scales will tip at some point soon.

I just hope to see more original content coming to streaming like the early days that sparked it all. My must watch list has been pretty empty lately.

Want a deeper dive into the streaming app business? Check out our 30 page industry report detailing downloads and revenue in the streaming industry, the leaders (and losers), categories that are flourishing, and more.

4. CapCut's Eating Up Video Editor Market Share

The last couple of years have been a rough year for video editing apps. I'm not talking about the 30% drop in demand or the 140% increase in revenue across the top apps.

instead I'm talking about CapCut, TikTok's video editor that's been quietly gaining a tremendous amount of market share from the incumbents.

If you've been following me for long enough you know I've been keeping an eye out for CapCut for quite a while. Pretty much since its launch.

When it was free I knew they were aiming to gain popularity and when they inevitably started monetizing I knew it was game over for the incumbents - unless they evolve drastically.

And they... didn't really. You can see that by the major shift in market share moving from the top 5 video editing apps and to CapCut.

I grouped Facetune, Splice, Picsart, VSCO, and Lightroom together and compared their revenue to CapCut's over time.

Our App Intelligence shows that in January of 2023, the top 5 apps commanded 96% of the revenue in the 6-app group leaving CapCut just 4%. Fast forward 22 months and things are much different.

As of October 2024, CapCut's share of revenue rose to 42% leaving the incumbents just 58% to fight over. That's more than 10% the share in a market that monthly revenue rise by $38M (net) across all six apps.

it won't take long for CapCut to cross 50%. The road to complete domination will be short. Unless the incumbents do something really drastic.

Will they?

5. A Record-Breaking October for ChatGPT

Over the past two years, ChatGPT has become more than just a helpful AI companion - it's turned into a revenue powerhouse. Just in time for OpenAI's transition into a for-profit organization, ChatGPT capped its biggest month of revenue ever.

Here are the numbers, along with a sneak preview of our upcoming State of AI industry report, highlighting just how big the AI market has become - thanks largely to ChatGPT.

ChatGPT ended October with the most downloads in a single month and the most revenue in a single month. Completely reversing the trend most apps are experiencing, where downloads are down and revenue might be up.

According to our App Intelligence, the app ended October with 32M new downloads from the App Store and Google Play - beating its previous all-time high by 33%. That all time-high was the prior month, where downloads crossed 20M for the first time and ended up with 24M downloads for the month.

Like most games, ChatGPT's new downloads largely came from Google Play which outpaced the App Store two to one in October. The US, India, and Brazil lead the charge and were responsible for delivering 28% of the new downloads - again a different figure than for many other apps.

But like most apps, ChatGPT's massive revenue haul came directly from the App Store, dominated by the US.

Our estimates show ChatGPT brought in $48M of net revenue from the App Store and Google Play in October. And that's net which means what Sam gets to keep to feed those hungry GPUs after giving Apple and Google their fees.

Month over month revenue rose 30%, according to our estimates. Not the most for ChatGPT, but the most at this scale.

Powering an Entire Industry

I hinted before at a bigger report to come soon, an that is indeed the case! The team has been hard at work collecting, analyzing, and compiling a report on the entire AI app market. We put a lot of effort into understanding the micro categories that make up the AI category and have mapped out not only where things have been but also where they're going and where the opportunities are.

Yes, there are still opportunities in AI.

This report is coming very soon, so keep an eye on your inbox. But here's why I'm bringing it up - Our analysis shows that consumers spent nearly $1.3B in the top 1K mobile AI apps since 2023. Of that, 47% came from general assistants, most powered by ChatGPT.

You might think general assistants, or thin wrappers as some would call them, is a small/shrinking category. If you do you'd be very wrong because it's the second largest category by number of apps and largest by revenue.

Another interesting tidbit is that about 25% of all consumer spending in the top 1K mobile AI apps was generated by (drumroll...) ChatGPT!

This is a weird case of OpenAI having its cake and eating it too all at once. While I'm not sure how long this will go on for I do know there are lots of opportunities in AI right now. Our report will give you more insight into where those are.

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.

Are you a Journalist? You can get access to our app and market intelligence for free through the Appfigures for Journalists program. Contact us for more details.

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.