20 Mobile App Marketing Statistics for 2026

Read the year and population before the number

A report with 2026 in its title often describes 2025 activity. That can inform a budget, but it is not a measurement of the full 2026 market. The sources below were checked on October 9, 2026. All monetary figures are in US dollars.

AppsFlyer’s announcement was published on December 10, 2025, before year-end. Its public summary does not give an exact final observation cutoff. Treat its totals as the publisher’s market reporting; no independent audit of a year-end ledger stands behind them. Do not combine year-over-year rates from different report editions to reconstruct a time series.

Market size and category demand

The first seven findings come from Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile 2026 summary. They describe the market, not a typical app’s results.

1. Store consumer spending reached $167 billion

Sensor Tower estimates 2025 spending at $167 billion, up 10.6% year over year. Paid downloads and in-app purchases are included. This is not developer profit or a total for all commerce and advertising taking place inside apps.

2. Downloads approached 150 billion

Downloads increased 0.8% in 2025 to nearly 150 billion. Download totals and unique-user totals measure different things. For acquisition planning, separate market demand from your own ability to turn an install into an active or paying customer.

3. Time in apps reached 5.3 trillion hours

Reported usage rose 3.8% in 2025. More time in the market does not mean more time in your category, nor does it establish the advertising inventory you can profitably buy.

4. US store spending was nearly $60 billion

The US remained the largest market in the report by consumer spending. A large market can justify investigation, but country-level conversion, acquisition costs and contribution still determine whether entry makes sense for your app.

5. Non-game spending grew 21%

Non-game in-app revenue surpassed games for the first time; games grew 1.3%. Choosing a monetization model requires a separate calculation: subscriptions, purchases and advertising each need their own economics.

6. Generative AI apps recorded 3.8 billion downloads

The category also exceeded $5 billion in in-app revenue in 2025. These aggregates do not describe the distribution across apps. A large category can still leave a new entrant facing high acquisition costs or weak renewal.

7. Growth differed across everyday categories

Sports-betting downloads rose 24%, credit and lending 18%, and restaurant and food delivery 14%. Revenue and profitability require their own measures. Compare your app with a relevant category before using the overall market growth rate.

Acquisition spending and 2026 activity

8. AppsFlyer reported $78 billion in user acquisition spend

Its 2025 trends report reports 13% annual growth, with $53 billion spent on non-game apps and $25 billion on games. These totals describe market spending. Each app still needs its own budget calculation.

9. Remarketing spend reached $31.3 billion

The same report gives 37% annual growth and a 29% share of app marketing spend, up from 25%. Spending growth does not establish incremental sales. Use a suitable holdout or other causal design before crediting remarketing for all attributed conversions.

10. iOS and Android spending moved differently

AppsFlyer reports iOS user acquisition spend up 35% and Android down 1%. These are changes in spending. They do not compare cost per install. Budget mix, volume and price can all change a total.

11. Adjust observed installs up 13% in the first half of 2026

Sessions grew 5% year over year in its August 2026 update. This is a current-year signal from Adjust’s measured app population. It covers half a year and does not show that every app grew.

12. Finance sessions grew faster than finance installs

In that same first-half comparison, finance installs rose 5% while sessions rose 29%. The gap is worth investigating in your own data. It does not prove that each new finance user became more engaged, because the user population also changes.

13. Dating-app retention was 26% on day 1 and 6% on day 30

These are Adjust’s global dating-app figures for 2025 and apply to that category only. Its retention definition counts cohort users returning on a specified day. Missing day 30 is not proof of permanent churn.

14. Dating-app cost per install (CPI) rose from $1.46 to $2.76

Adjust reports that change between 2024 and 2025 for the same category. The public article does not provide enough sample detail to make it your target CPI. Geography, operating system, channel and payer conversion still matter.

Subscription competition and conversion

The next six findings come from RevenueCat’s 2026 report. Its own dataset covers more than 115,000 apps and $16 billion in revenue, subject to inclusion thresholds. It is not a random sample of every subscription app. The two market-launch findings below use Appfigures data embedded in that report.

15. New subscription-app launches exceeded 14,700 a month

Appfigures puts January 2026 launches above 14,700, compared with about 2,000 in January 2022. Publishing is one step toward a viable business. Differentiation and distribution remain separate work after an app is published.

16. Apps launched before 2020 earned 69% of subscription revenue

That Appfigures snapshot covers January 2026 across storefronts. Age alone is not a cause of success. Established apps also have accumulated audiences, renewal cohorts and acquisition learning that a new launch has yet to build.

17. Median annual growth in monthly recurring revenue was 5.3%

RevenueCat’s top decile exceeded 306% annual growth. The metric compares recurring revenue at two year-end points. A market average conceals wide variation; fast percentage growth can also start from a small revenue base.

18. Year-one realized value was $23 per payer globally

The reported median was $32 for developers headquartered in North America. This grouping uses developer headquarters; subscriber location is a separate dimension. Realized value is net revenue over a defined horizon; it is not contribution profit or a forecast of lifetime value.

19. Hard-paywall apps had 10.7% median day-35 paid conversion

Freemium apps had 2.1%. This measures the share of installs converting to a paid subscription within 35 days. These figures compare different app groups; no randomization assigned apps to either model. The gap does not predict the lift from adding a hard paywall.

20. Longer trials had higher median trial-to-paid conversion

Trials lasting 17 to 32 days had a 42.5% median, compared with 25.5% for trials of four days or less. Trial starters are the denominator. Different apps and audiences can explain the gap, so test duration against revenue, refunds and later renewal.

Turn a benchmark into a decision

Start with the decision you can change: channel allocation, onboarding, trial design or price. Then select a comparable cohort and a metric that reaches the business outcome. A hypothetical $2 CPI with 2% install-to-payer conversion implies $100 in media cost per new payer, before creative, agency and other acquisition costs. An inexpensive install can still be an expensive customer.

Use your KPI definitions to align the install date, attribution window, currency and revenue basis. Compare equally mature cohorts. For subscription tests, examine paid conversion alongside refunds, realized revenue and renewals; the paywall benchmark guide develops that comparison. The ad spend calculator can help explore assumptions, but its scenario is not observed performance.

Measurement changes also affect comparability. Google’s October 17, 2025 announcement listed Privacy Sandbox technologies to retire, including the Attribution Reporting API for Chrome and Android. Apple’s AdAttributionKit guidance describes privacy-preserving attribution. Record the method used by each cohort before interpreting a reporting change as a marketing change.

For an example of a staged acquisition plan, see our published mobile puzzle RPG launch case study. Its results belong to that project and period. They are not a baseline for a new subscription app or proof that another launch will perform the same way.

Strataigize’s mobile app marketing service connects acquisition planning with product and revenue measurement. A free growth consultation can help identify which comparison is relevant to your app and what evidence is missing before you commit to a test.