This Week in Apps - A Challenging Summer

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. ChatGPT Eats into TikTok's Lead - the Highest Earning Apps in July

July is in the rear view mirror, and as the hot summer continues, it's time to rank the highest earning apps in the world.

The list looks fairly similar to June's, but there's one big change.

Starting at the top, TikTok is still the highest-earning app in the world. Although its future in the US remains unknown, the app continues to print money, as the kids say.

According to Appfigures Intelligence, TikTok generated $358M of after-fees revenue for ByteDance. That's a hefty chunk of change, but TikTok's lowest earnings since April.

That's big news!

ChatGPT, which seems to be on an unstoppable run, ended July with $196M in after-fee revenue from the App Store and Google Play, according to our estimates.

That's $11M higher than June's total. Can you guess how many apps make more than that per month? It's less than you think. (Answer at the end of the article)

ChatGPT's meteoric rise will undoubtedly cement it in this position, but catching up to TikTok fully will take a while.

Our estimates show that YouTube, dethroned by ChatGPT with no looking back, ended July with $140M of after-fee revenue - a modest 2% higher than June's haul, but more is always better.

Tinder came in 4th, just like June, but took a hit in revenue in July, likely "thanks" to the proliferation of more niche dating apps and the solid run competitor Hinge is on.

Disney+ rounded out the top five highest-earners with $112M of after-fee revenue. The same as June.

This summer has been very challenging for some and a delight to others. Can you guess what's causing the difference?

Appfigures Intelligence shows that together, the top 10 highest-earners added $1.3B to their bottom lines in July - and that's all after Apple and Google have been paid. That's a bit less than June.

2. Unstoppable, Just Unstoppable! The most downloaded apps in July

July was an interesting month in terms of revenue, but even more interesting in terms of downloads.

ChatGPT was the most downloaded app in the world in July across both stores and when combined. Appfigures Intelligence shows it made its way into 52M new devices in July.

It also reached $2B in lifetime revenue according to TechCrunch (using Appfigures data).

ChatGPT might even be taking downloads and revenue away from teen favorites TikTok and Instagram by being a better friend than their real friend, according to this NBC article (backed by Appfigures data).

Speaking of those other two... TikTok was the second most downloaded app in July and Instagram was third with 39M and 38M downloads, respectively, according to our estimates.

Both have been on the decline for quite some time now. Can it really be the rise of companion apps replacing the need for human-to-human interaction?

Facebook and WhatsApp round out the top five most downloaded apps in the world with almost as many downloads as in June.

Facebook is getting almost as many downloads as TikTok globally. Let that sink in...

One more notable change is Temu's "recovery". I'm not sure if this is sustainable, but Temu's downloads have picked up in July, thrusting it into the 6th spot. Did it figure out another way around the new tariffs?

Together, the top 10 most downloaded apps made their way into 298M more devices in July, according to Appfigures estimates. A 3% increase, marking the first time revenue is down while downloads are up.

3. This App Claims to Earn You Money But Might Just Be Losing Money for Everyone Involved

A few weeks ago, an app called Claim rose to the top of the App Store. With a name like Claim - Make Them Pay, I immediately wanted to know who "they" are and what they're paying me for. And also, how much would I have to pay the app for this pleasure?

Claim helps individuals find out about and join class action lawsuits, the kind of lawsuits a group of people with the same complaint sue together in one case, and others with the same issue who don't join the lawsuit can still share in the outcome.

Notice the word "share". That's important for later.

First, let's talk performance!

Claim launched in February but wasn't on anyone's radar until early June, where we estimate daily downloads were in the hundreds. By mid-June, however, that changed as downloads started spiking and the daily average rose to around 10K.

Like many before it, Claim went viral on TikTok. I promise I'm not looking for these TikTok success stories, they reveal themselves all on their own.

By mid-July, there was enough momentum, and Claim jumped to the top of the App Store, where it stayed for a few days. The trend has ended, and downloads are back down, but still hovering around 10K, which is a nice number considering what the app does.

Appfigures estimates show that since the beginning of June, Claim made its way into 1.2M iPhones (there's no Android app).

But what makes it even more interesting is the revenue. Claiming your money doesn't come free.

Claim's aggressive onboarding promises to get you thousands for just $6/week or $60/yr (or $40/yr if you figure out how to dismiss the initial paywall) and forces you to pay to get started - a hard paywall.

I'll get angry comments for what I'm going to say next, but I'm okay with that - hard paywalls only work at massive scale. They're bad for conversion all other times and win out because some users get confused. That's not how I want to earn money...

The hard paywall gave Claim $2M in net revenue (after fees), and revenue aligns directly with the spike in downloads, which isn't great for a subscription app because it means users are churning.

But there's a twist.

And here's something interesting. While Claim promises thousands in payouts, the average settlement of class actions, according to several sources online, is only a few dollars per person.

Even worse, class actions usually result in a single lump sum being divided into however many people submit a claim, so the easier it is to submit a claim the less each individual will get.

I get the idea of Claim, and I think it's a very clever one, but its longevity is being severely limited by its overly aggressive onboarding, hard paywall, and weekly subscription.

4. Gmail Is Free, but That Didn't Stop It from Having Its First $100M Quarter

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.

5. X's Mobile Revenue Stays Put While Downloads Take a Tumble

July's numbers are in, and it's time for my monthly check-in on X's revenue performance.

The good news is that revenue didn't drop! It also didn't really grow, but I can see why.

Let's start at the beginning, with the numbers. According to Appfigures Intelligence, X earned $16.9M in net revenue in July. The most since revenue slumped in May.

A combination of rising subscription costs, Grok having its own app with its own in-app purchases, and a steep decrease in downloads from Google Play is making it very hard for X to grow its revenue.

Our estimates show that downloads from Google Play are down nearly 50% year-over-year, losing the service millions of potential paying users, and it shows.

I'm not sure exactly where the users are going, though, because X's rivals are not growing nearly at that rate. For comparison, Bluesky saw just 119K downloads from Google Play in July, according to our estimates.

The folks at X did notice and are working on it, so I think that trend will reverse very soon.

I'm keeping an eye out for the results.

Answer: Exactly 139 apps (and games) make more than $11M (net) per month. The average is $31.8M.

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.