Welcome to the App Store Categories Recap. At the end of every month, we’ll look at some key criteria, including downloads, revenue, and apps and publishers added, for every category on iOS and Google Play. Our goal is to determine which categories are trending upwards and which are on the downswing.
As a note, Games are excluded from the below rankings. They’re a category unto themselves, and you can find more about them here.
Three Up:
iOS: Health & Fitness
Popular apps in July: Walk for a dog, Weight Loss Diet & Calorie Calculator, Skyfit
Though bathing suit season is soon drawing to a close for much of the world, health and fitness apps continue to be the biggest trending category on iOS. Here’s a snapshot of the category's performance in key metrics in July:
iOS: Photo & Video
Popular apps in July: Prisma, live.ly, Flippy
Could we have a potential changing of the guard in Photo & Video? Not only did the category have a 35 percent MoM increase in apps added, the new additions were unusually successful in climbing the charts. So much so, that according to Apptopia data, mainstay category apps like SnapChat and Moments were last month’s biggest losers.
Google Play: News & Magazines
Popular apps in July: News Break , News Republic, CNN
Despite adding only 2,400 apps and 830 publishers to the category (down 17.5 and 15.5 percent MoM, respectively), News & Magazines had downloads increase 54 percent and revenue by 35% MoM.
Reuters recently declared that mobile “is rapidly becoming the primary means for consumers to access this type of content [news].” Could we already be witnessing the beginning of a shift in consumer preferences?
Three Down:
Google Play: Sports
Popular apps in July: NBC Sports, UFC, ESPN Fantasy Football
No surprises here. With only one of the four major leagues (MLB) playing, July is a virtual dead zone for fans and sports app publisher alike. Of particularly (grim) note is downloads, which fell more than 95% MoM. Still, one expects the category to rebound in August, as both the Olympic Games and the NFL preseason begin.
Google Play: Photography
Popular apps in July: Toolwiz Photos Editor, FreePrints, Z Camera
Though all key metrics—downloads, revenue, apps added, and publishers added-were down when compared to June, downloads and revenue fell by less than 2 percent, whereas apps added and publishers added fell by 12 percent and 15 percent, respectively. This could indicate a category, one dominated by mainstays like Moments, Photo Collage Maker, and Google Photos, is bordering on oversaturation.
iOS: Food and Drink
Popular apps in July: UberEATS, Tropical Rewards App, New Dunkin’ Donuts
Despite all other metrics trending upwards, revenue plummeted by more than 50 percent, spiraling Food & Category to a ranking of 38 out of 40 in highest-earning categories. It’s a surprising dip for a category filled with so many name-brand apps, and so we’ll be sure to monitor to see whether the drastic decrease in revenue was a temporary dip or serious indicator of food apps failing to monetize.