- DataAi predicts 2024 trends, emphasizing TikTok's continued success, expecting $14.6 billion in app store spends.
- AI integration in apps will rise, with 2.3 billion downloads featuring generative AI in 2024.
- Microblogging declines, with X (formerly Twitter) and Meta's Threads losing users rapidly.
- Gaming spending is set to increase by 4%, reaching $111.4 billion, driven by growth in the US and East Asian nations. Additionally, in-app spending will rise as third-party cookies and ATT deprecation impact advertising revenues.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that TikTok is going to continue its record breaking streak well into 2024. What this essentially entails is that app store spends for TikTok will reach a staggering $14.6 billion in the next year. As it approaches the $15 billion mark, TikTok will automatically become the highest grossing app of all time, raking in a whopping $11 million on a day to day basis. This gives developers a path that they can follow if they want to replicate the Chinese social media and short form video app’s success more easily than might have been the case otherwise.
The second trend that is worth mentioning here is that AI will start to form an ever larger component of the app economy. Around 2.3 billion app downloads that will occur in 2024 will involve some type of generative AI functionality with all things having been considered and taken into account. Developers would do well to factor this into the equation, since Gen AI is a hot button topic and consumers will very likely flock to apps that offer it in some capacity or another.
Another trend that bears pointing to is that microblogging appears to be on a steep decline. X, formerly known as Twitter, has hemorraghed about 53 million users since Elon Musk took control, bringing the total down to just 250 million Daily Active Users as of the publishing of this report.
Meta’s answer to Twitter, Threads, is not faring much better either. After reaching a peak of 63 million Daily Active Users in July of 2023, the platform saw its usership plummet to reach just 20 million DAU, and the downward trajectory does not appear to be going away anytime soon.
One ray of hope for app developers may occur in the realm of gaming, gaming spends set to increase by 4% to reach $111.4 billion as of next year. This is a reversal of the downward trend seen in 2023, with spends declining by 3% and dipping to $107.5 billion.
Much of this growth will come from the US, with consumers in the global superpower set to increase and contribute a 40% uptick to the overall total year over year. Japan is also going to contribute 16% to total increase, with other East Asian nations such as South Korea and Taiwan also showing a considerable amount of forward momentum in this regard.
The final prediction made in this report is that mobile revenue will increasingly come from in-app spending as the deprecation of third party cookies and ATT decrease revenues that could have previously been generated from advertising. Media sharing networks are poised to witness a 152% increase which will see revenues reach $1.3 billion, and advertising budgets will decrease as apps obtain more and more cash from consumers themselves.
It will be interesting to see where things go from here on out, since this report has revealed some seismic changes that will be entering the mobile app industry in 2024.
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