Netflix takes the crown for top earning non-game mobile app in 2017

According to Sensor Tower Store Intelligence data, mobile users spent nearly US$60 billion in apps during 2017 on the App Store and Google play, but which apps and publishers contributed most to that total?The study states that Netflix was the world’s top earning non-game mobile app in 2017, dethroning the top spot held by Spotify in 2016 and LINE the year before that. The streaming video giant saw gross subscriber revenue of approximately US$510 million last year according to our estimates, representing a huge year-over-year increase of 138%, or about 2.4 times the $215 million users spent in the app during 2016.Netflix was also the highest grossing non-game app on Apple’s store, while it ranked below HBO NOW on Google Play, where IAC’s Tinder was the top app by worldwide revenue. Tinder ranked No. 4 in 2016, while HBO NOW was the fifth highest grossing non-game app that year on the platform.2016’s No. 14 ranked non-game app by revenue, Tencent Video, grew tremendously over the past 12 months, ranking fifth overall for 2017 and No. 3 on Apple’s App Store. The app didn’t make the top 10 on the Play Store, which is expected as Google’s platform is not available in its largest market, China.In terms of first-time app installs per App Store or Google Play account, Facebook-owned WhatsApp comes out ontop, swapping places with the core Facebook app which occupied the No. 1 spot in 2016. While Facebook apps continued to dominate the top of the overall and Google Play download charts, the same wasn’t the case on Apple’s store, where Google’s YouTube was the No. 3 most installed app last year.