Few would accuse us of exaggerating if we said 2025 was a monumental year for the app economy.
After a period of miserly purse-clutching due to political and economic uncertainty and the post-Covid wind-down, everyone had high hopes for 2025, and the year certainly did not disappoint.
2025 continued the trend of steady if unglamorous growth already set by 2024. UA spend reached $78 billion globally, representing a 13% year-over-year increase, as reported by AppsFlyer. Total global spend reached $109 billion, with $31 billion going towards remarketing initiatives.
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While these numbers indicate a healthy economy, it was 2025’s headlines that really solidify its reputation as “a monumental year”.
April saw the Epic Games v. Apple verdict, blowing open the Apple App Store by allowing D2C web shops. A similar fate befell Google only a few months later. Since then app-to-web and web-to-app have become as hot as AI in the minds of app marketers and developers alike.
2025 also marked the first year when non-gaming apps overtook gaming apps.
It all happened in the second quarter when consumer apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store generated $20.9 billion in revenue, or $300 million more than games. Game revenue has, in fact, been largely flat since the first quarter of 2023.
Business of Apps too changed massively over the course of 2025.
In October, we consolidated our App Promotion Summit events under the Business of Apps name to create a single, stronger brand, hosting our first event under the Business of Apps name just a few weeks later in November.
Business of Apps Berlin 2025 itself was a huge success, boosting its biggest audience yet. We counted 700+ attendees on the day who gathered at the iconic Hotel Adlon to hear from some of the brightest in the industry about the now and next of the app industry.
In 2026, we will be moving to a new venue, the Estrel Congress Center, as our audience has grown too big for the Adlon.
To wrap a year of change and exciting developments for both us and the wider industry, we’ve curated all our best content of the year, covering and dissecting all the changes we haven’t already mentioned.
In 2025, we continued publishing our industry reports dissecting sector-specific app data. 2025 saw us updating all our existing reports with the most recent data as well as publishing several new ones, including:
Alongside our long-form reports, we continued regularly releasing updated benchmarks and statistics pages, providing readers with quick digests on app performance data across different categories, verticals, platforms, and technologies.
2025 was defined by structural shifts in app marketing and revenue generation as a result of the Epic legal cases and increasing adoption of AI. Our insights dug beneath the headlines to unpack what these changes really mean for marketers and product teams navigating a rapidly changing landscape.
We also covered the biggest stories shaping the app economy in real time, from landmark legal rulings to standout growth stories.
Video became an even more important part of our content mix in 2025, with recordings of expert-led sessions and panels from our events as well as dedicated app talks tackling the most pressing challenges in app growth.
With only a few days left until Christmas, we are already looking forward to 2026 and what the year has in store for us and the industry as a whole.
We will continue delivering the same high-quality content as before but with even higher production values. We will continue reporting on the biggest events in the industry as well as sharing the most important insights and learnings.
What’s more, after consolidating with App Promotion Summit, we have brought our events and media strategies even closer than before, which will help us bring many of the lessons shared during our events to the Business of Apps website in the form of insight posts, video, news, and podcast.
As for the events, we will be scaling them up further in 2026, with expanded capacity in London and new venues in NYC and Berlin. The events we will host include:
The Business of Apps team wishes everyone Happy Holidays and is looking forward to welcoming you in the new year with our first piece for 2026, which will cover our take on where the industry is headed in 2026, featuring expert insights from some of the biggest names in the app world.
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