Non-Games Finally Out-Earned Games in the Stores

Eighteen years after the app stores opened, the 2025 numbers Sensor Tower published this year are a turning point. In-app purchase revenue hit $167 billion, up 10.6%. For the first time, non-game categories took more of that money than games. Non-game IAP grew 21%. Games grew 1.3%.

Time spent is still enormous — 5.3 trillion hours, about 3.6 hours a day per mobile user — but downloads only inched up 0.8% to roughly 150 billion. The market is not adding new people as fast as it is extracting more money from the people already there.

Generative AI is a real category now

AI apps doubled downloads to 3.8 billion and nearly tripled IAP to more than $5 billion. Google, Microsoft, and X are funding assistants to chase ChatGPT. That is both a tailwind and a cliff: the category is liquid, and the incumbents can bundle.

• Subscriptions and digital goods, not ads alone, are carrying growth.
• Utilities, education, health, and AI assistants are the new high-ASP shelves.
• A focus or finance app is competing with ChatGPT for the same unlock moment.

The educational take for a two-person studio

If non-games won, it is because people will pay for software that sits in a daily loop. Games still take time. Tools take money when they remove friction. That is good news for Swift and TypeScript people who ship small, serious apps — if the app is a habit, not a costume for an API.

The store is no longer a hit factory for new downloads. It is a collection business for products people already open.