💡 The most important change at X in 2025 wasn’t app revenue ↑48% YoY. It was shifting growth from Elon-driven spikes to product-led pull. That’s slower. And healthier.

📈 iOS app releases are the highest they've been in years. AI + vibe coding lowered the bar for entry. TikTok proved organic scale is reachable. Subs proved indie apps can pay rent. The downturn wasn’t demand-based. It was who could build and make it worthwhile.

🎧 Spotify and Apple grab headlines while the “other” music apps net an estimated $100M/month. Pandora, YouTube Music, Amazon, SoundCloud, Tidal—all up YoY. Discovery focus and pricing are doing the heavy lifting. Alternative streaming isn’t a niche anymore. It’s a trend line.

🔬 The paid app ecosystem still exists but its demise is accelerating. Releases down 50%. Only 138K are left. Just 3.6% of the stores. A single utility app out-earns them all in a long weekend. The numbers aren't in their favor. Hard to justify shipping one in 2026.

📈 Wild contrast right now. ChatGPT’s growth is flattening, but the entire AI category just hit an all time high on mobile. An estimated $206M net for the "Big 5" in one month. All five at personal bests. The race everyone thinks ChatGPT already won is anything but decided.

The most downloaded mobile games in the world in October: 🥇 Block Blast (20M) 🥈 Roblox (19M) 🥉 Subway Surfers (16M) * Downloads are estimated

The highest earning mobile games in the world in october: 🥇 Last War ($124M) 🥈 Royal Match ($121M) 🥉 Whiteout Survival ($114M) • Revenue is estimated after fees

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The most downloaded mobile apps in the world in October: 🥇 ChatGPT (43M) 🥈 TikTok (35M) 🥉 Gemini (34M) • Downloads are estimated

The highest earning apps in the world in October: 🥇 TikTok ($316M) 🥈 ChatGPT ($187M) 🥉 YouTube ($137M) * Revenue is estimated after fees

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📊 Surprising to see the “OpenAI effect” barely move the revenue needle. Sora’s made an estimated $178K net, 19% less the top earning AI video generator in the same period. Low urgency to buy more video credits = zero signs of lift. Meanwhile, installs near 6.5M since launch.

Prestige shows didn’t move the mobile streamer revenue needle. Sports did. Reality did. Reruns did. Peacock bet on habit over hype. Revenue grew 25%. Now it's neck-and-neck with HBO's estimated consumer sending — for the first time ever. More here: appfigures.com/resources/i...

⚡️ Sega’s mascot is still outrunning the new kids. 🏅 Sonic Rumble’s launch has added an estimated 500K+ on top of 10M "Early Rumbler" installs. 360K on iOS alone. Revenue's ramping up. 📈 Already #7 out of 12+ mobile titles in a catalog nearing 1B est. downloads since 2017.

📉 🔪 Supercell kills most games *before* they even ship. It stuck with Brawl Stars and got a $2B+ hit. 💥 It stuck with Squad Busters and got a sunset. 🪦 Lifetime: 34.7M installs, $65M net. Revenue -96% YoY, downloads -88%. 😱 Sometimes endurance ≠ success.

👑 🔥 260M people playing one mobile game every month. That’s equivalent to 75% of the U.S. population — on a single title. Its name: Honor of Kings And it's already cleared $1.82B in 2025 (more than 2024). 🇨🇳 China still dominates spending, but 🇺🇸 U.S. momentum is real.

🫖 🔥 Two of the hottest dating apps on iOS just vanished overnight. Tea Dating Advice (6.1M installs, $3.4M IAP) and TeaOnHer (2.2M installs) — both gone from the App Store globally. Privacy leaks last summer didn’t kill them. Apple might have. 💔

🔥 One model update flipped the whole image-AI market. Late August: Adobe Firefly up +151% since July. Gemini barely +20%. Then Gemini dropped “Nano Banana" 🍌 Now Gemini’s +331% since July. 📈 Firefly’s down 68%. 📉 💡 In mobile AI, momentum can reverse overnight.

⚖️ Apples to apples, same store, same week-one window. Sora hit 96% of ChatGPT’s estimated U.S. iOS downloads. Gemini, Copilot, Grok? Not even close.

🤯 Invite-only and still outpacing ChatGPT’s launch. Sora pulled 627K iOS downloads in 7 days. That’s +21K over ChatGPT’s 2023 debut. Hype alone can move App Store charts.

Nintendo's Fire Emblem Shadows launch is trailing its predecessor's with an estimated 518K installs and $107K spent, or $0.21/download, in its 1st 10 days. 2017's Fire Emblem Heroes saw 2.3M (4.4x) est. installs and $5.3M (49x) spent in its 1st 10 days, for $2.31/download (11x).

Clash Royale released 9.5 years ago and Supercell's classic has made a huge turnaround. Largely due to its new-ish Merge Tactics mode, it has grossed $498M to date in 2025 — that's 190% or 2.2x its total at this point in 2024. Installs are also way up to 34M (+80% or 1.8x YoY).

It's 20 days since Destiny: Rising's mobile launch, so how's it doing? 1) It's been downloaded ⬇️ 2M times and made $6M net 💰 so far. 💸 2) Its last 7 days 💰 per install was $6.80, 136x its 1st week's $0.05. 🚀 3) Its total 💰 in last 7 days vs. 1st week = ⬆️ 56x. 🔥

Google Gemini is the #1 iPhone app in 106 countries, beating ChatGPT thanks to its impressive "nano banana" image model. Revenue is another story: ChatGPT wins there with $10/download (net) in the past 30 days on iOS, while Gemini's made just $0.15/download in the same timeframe.

Appfigures Intelligence data in the latest from @SarahPerezTC at @TechCrunch on Google Gemini's mobile app getting a huge boost from a nano 🍌 techcrunch.com/2025/09/16/...

What does the base storage bump from 128 GB to 256 GB on iPhone 17 mean for app hoarders? Factoring in iOS 26's footprint, the base iPhone 17 will store about 3.39K average sized (67.8 MB) non-game apps, or close to 1.73K more than the base iPhone 16's 1.67K, a 104% increase.

𝕏 broke into the top 10 most downloaded apps in the last 24 hours. It's #6 now in the US App Store across all apps and games

A crossover event between Brawl Stars and Subway Surfers is underway as both games seek to reverse negative growth in 2025. Subway Surfers revenue and downloads are -16.4% and -17.9% YoY, respectively. Brawl Stars is -55.7% and -33.3%, respectively. We'll be monitoring closely.

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The first Destiny: Rising numbers are in. App Store and Google Play using Guardians have downloaded the franchise's first mobile entry 636K times (41% U.S.) and spent an estimated $383K in-game (68% U.S.). It's a top 25 earning game in 6 markets incl. the U.S. and top 50 in 25.

Destiny has finally landed on mobile and is rising up the charts. It's the #1 free iOS game in the U.S. and #2 among all apps. Revenue-wise it's #65 in adventure and #72 in action. Globally, it's a top 10 free game in 71 countries, top 50 grossing in 11, and top 100 earning in 8.

Join @arielmichaeli next week for a LIVE Open Q&A on app marketing. From ASO, Apple Ads, growth strategy, screenshots to whatever’s on your mind. Bring your questions and let’s get you to the next level. More Info ▶️ fg.rs/ls61

In late July, Unity launched Unity Rewards: Play & Earn, a rewarded UA app, on Google Play. The app helps users discover games based on their tastes, then pays them to play via coins that can be redeemed for real rewards such as gift cards. It's been downloaded 3.6K times so far.

It's been 90 days since Fortnite returned to the U.S. App Store. Since then, it's been installed 4.8M times and players have spent $6.1M via Apple's platform, or $1.27/download. In the 90 days before it was removed in 2020, it saw 2.5M installs and $51M spent, or $20.40/download.

TikTok's video editor CapCut ✂️ just reached $1.5B in worldwide consumer spending. 💰 That's only a fraction of what TikTok itself generates, but still a major feat nonetheless. CapCut has grossed $786M so far in 2025, +186% YoY from $275M by this point in 2024. 📈

Players spent 70% more in Valorant Mobile during its second day on China's App Store, our estimates show. The Riot Games and Tencent title generated $1.7M in spending on 8/20 vs. $1M on 8/19. Meanwhile, total downloads doubled to about 300K, putting revenue per download at $9.

ChatGPT lost its 👑 as the hottest U.S. iPhone app for the 1st time in weeks to... a focus timer? ⏳ Riding a major TikTok 🌊, Focus Friend has crossed 500K installs (including Google Play) and users clearly like it — just check out that 99% positive rating sentiment.

Valorant Mobile has arrived in China. It's the #1 downloaded iOS app overall, and in just a few hours has become the #7 earning game and #14 grossing app. The title's PC/console popularity is clearly carrying over to mobile and it's seen as worth investing in monetarily as well.

Tomorrow, join @arielmichaeli and (ex-Apple) growth expert @julie_tonna as they break down conversion optimization across paid and organic channels and share proven tactics you can use to make every channel perform better. More info 👉 fg.rs/ls60s

July 1 marked the wide release of Mo.co and now we know how Supercell's new co-op action RPG ⚔️ has fared since. It saw 1.35M installs 💾 and $596K in net 💰, making it the company's #5 most wanted game for July, just ahead of its prior launch, Squad Busters. 🎮

⏰ Going live in 20 minutes! Join us at fg.rs/ls59s and learn how to make Custom Product Pages work harder to drive installs.

VPN apps have been 🔥 in the UK since the Online Safety Act took effect there. Desire to skirt ID-based age checks on many websites sent installs to a record high of 70K/day (from 14K!) and revenue got a big (5x) boost. It topped out at $268K/day net, up from around $54K/day. 💰

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Pokémon GO's best months for 2025 revenue so far have been since Scopely caught it in a $3.5B deal in May. Global net 💰 grew 82% MoM in June to $62M, its 3rd best result in the past 3 years. July was 📉 to $45M, but still enough to be its 2nd largest month to date in 2025.

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Men can spill the tea too, apparently. 😂 71.5K downloads since the app launched 7 days ago. User's don't seem to love it though. 💔 Let's hope they have better security. 😅

As shared by CEO Jay Graber, Bluesky just surpassed 38 million users across mobile and web. Appfigures Intelligence shows estimated downloads of its mobile app between Feb. and Jul. 2025—the app dropped its invite requirement in Feb. 2024—at 4.2M, up 189% YoY.

Clash Royale from @supercell just had its best month for revenue since all the way back in 2016. The game was overhauled earlier this year leading to players spending $82.8M worldwide in July, $63M more than January (+312%) and $60M more YoY (+256%) from July 2024.