This Week in Apps - May's Revenue Rejuvenation

This Week in Apps is a short, no-fluff, round-up of interesting things that happened in the mobile industry. Here are our top highlights.

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U.S. Download Index (vs. 30 days ago)

Insights

1. May Was Snapchat's Biggest Month of Revenue Growth (and Revenue)

With May behind us, it's time to look at Snapchat's revenue and see if the "paid beta testing" feature continues to be in demand.

If you're new to the series, every month, I look at the mobile revenue of social platforms that are trying to monetize their free users, which so far includes Twitter, Snapchat, and Telegram (which isn't but is a social platform).

Focusing on Snapchat, I think I owe Snap a serious apology...

See, I've been saying for months now that its offering isn't enough and that it needs more to grow, but looking at the numbers, they're doing more than fine all on their own.

And by more than fine I mean $13.9M of net revenue from the App Store in May, a 59% increase when compared to April, according to our App Intelligence.

May brings Snapchat's total net revenue since launch to $70M. And that's net, meaning what Snap gets to keep after giving Apple its share.

That's Snapchat's biggest month of revenue and also the biggest in growth. Clearly, people want features first.

Digging into the revenue a bit more, it should come as no surprise that the majority of this revenue, 65.9% to be precise, is coming from the US. But that's also pretty interesting because it means 34.1% is coming from everywhere else.

The UK was the second largest contributor of revenue, followed by Canada, France, and Australia.

Although this still isn't really comparable to its ad revenue, the rate at which revenue is growing is astounding, considering the user base is so used to getting everything for free.

I see this as a great sign for product-led revenue for such platforms.

Which platform do you think is going to follow next?

2. CapCut's Revenue Growth is Outpacing Every Other Competitor!

Lights, camera, CapCut!

The video editor from TikTok that's now monetizing is doing so in a way that should put all of its competitors on notice!

So far this year, CapCut's net revenue has grown 243%. But what's more interesting is that its revenue is growing double-digit % while the competition, incumbents that have seen success for years, are barely growing. Some are even declining.

CapCut, which was free up until late last year, is now selling a pro subscription that unlocks additional effects, filters, and cloud space.

On the App Store, CapCut's revenue has been growing at a decent rate this year. It kicked off 2023 by doubling, and dropped to a more realistic rate after, where it's averaging revenue growth of 36% month over month.

According to our App Intelligence, that growth gave CapCut $2.8M of net revenue from the App Store in May.

Splice, Picsart, and Facetune are close competitors to CapCut and all bring in more revenue, in absolute terms, right now. But unlike CapCut, all are also growing at a much slower rate.

The leader of the pack both in terms of absolute revenue and growth rate, Facetune, is growing at half the speed, and that's on a good day. Facetune's revenue from the App Store grew 17% in May. It ended May with $10M of net revenue from the App Store. And that's net, meaning what Lightricks gets to keep after giving Apple its cut.

Picsart and Splice grew 3% and 8%, respectively, in May. Those rates dropped significantly when compared to earlier in the year, where the numbers were 23% for Splice and 17% for Picsart.

CapCut is certainly eating someone's lunch.

If you've tried the app you'd know that the in-app purchase isn't heavily promoted at all. Like TikTok isn't even trying. If that's the kind of growth it's seeing with the in-app purchase hidden, imagine what would happen if they tried just a little harder.

It's not a question of if but rather when...

3. Paramount+ Continues to Chase Peacock - Both Hit All-Time Revenue Highs

Streaming platforms have been active this year, and as we head into the summer season, I expect nothing less than the race heating up. Again.

HBO Max consumed Discovery+ and turned into Max last week, Disney is doing something similar soon, and for a good reason - content is (and never stopped being) king!

And in both cases, it's mostly TV content that's key.

That could explain why Peacock and Paramount+, both of which come at streaming from the TV direction, have hit new all-time revenue highs in May.

Peacock and Paramount+ have been fairly close in terms of revenue for the last year or so. In fact, up until last October, Paramount+ was beating Peacock.

That changed in November as Peacock took the lead and hasn't given it up since.

According to our estimates, Paramount+ ended May with $18.9M of net revenue from the App Store, up a modest 3% from April. Peacock's net revenue from the App Store in May totaled $21.3M, up a healthy 7% from April. And that's all net revenue, which is what's left after Apple takes its fee.

Last week when talking about HBO Max's rebrand I mentioned how content is still the most important part in the streaming-to-revenue equation, which makes sense, but was somewhat forgotten by the big names.

It's more likely that it wasn't forgotten, and instead, it's a change in the trend. During covid lockdowns people had more time to spend on consuming content. Now, with life going back to normal and many jobs going back to the office, content consumption patterns are changing and TV content is more suited for that.

Both Peacock and Paramount+ are primed to continue their growth and I expect to see that happening faster this year.

Tidbits

• 14,949 new iOS and Android apps and games were released this week.
• ChatGPT has been downloaded over 3M times worldwide so far. 48% of those came from the US.
• The new Max app from HBO has been the #1 most downloaded app in the US App Store for 11 consecutive days.

4. Crypto Exchange Coinbase Saw a Massive Drop in Downloads This Year

2023 has not been the best year for cryptocurrencies...

Coinbase, which became a household name during the pandemic, is a good proxy for how the masses fell in and out of love with this new type of money most still don't understand.

And in 2023, there's been a lot of falling out of love with the platform.

Coinbase made its way into 2.2M iPhone and Android devices in January of 2022, according to our App Intelligence. That wasn't the peak of downloads for the crypto exchange, but I didn't want to go back too far.

That was also when Bitcoin, the most popular crypto currency mere mortals know about, was near its peak.

Bitcoin's value, like Coinbase's downloads, started declining very early in 2022.

By mid July Bitcoin was worth less than half and Coinbase's downloads were at about a quarter, 607K for the month of July.

The trend continued and by May of 2023 Coinbase saw just 379K downloads from the App Store and Google Play, according to our App Intelligence. That's an 82% cut when compared to January.

Bitcoin's value continues to fluctuate but is still far from where it was in 2022. Coinbase's bet on mere mortals trading something they don't understand was a good one when the going was good. And it might be good again, but for now it really doesn't look like it.

I'm no crypto expert, but I think the masses aren't ready for crypto yet.

5. Top Dating Apps See Revenue Rebound in May After a Long Slog

Dating apps aren't new at all, but during lockdowns in 2020 they became the way to socialize to the point revenue was rising faster than ever before. It took a bit, but once everyone realized that we're stuck at home, wallets opened up.

For context, Tinder, the category's leader, saw new revenue rise from the App Store rise from $17M in January of 2018 to more than $100M in October of 2021.

Yes. That much!

While the overall trend for the top trio, which includes Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge, the highest-earning dating apps in the US, is positive, 2023 was mostly negative for Bumble and Hinge.

Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge started 2023 on a high note, collectively earning more than $130M of net revenue from the App Store in January, according to our App Intelligence. Tinder was the leader earning the majority with Hinge last on this short list.

Revenue for all three shrunk in February down to $116M of net revenue from the App Store, according to our App Intelligence, and all three decreased.

While Tinder managed to get back up a bit, Bumble and Hinge continued to drop in March and April.

That seems to have changed in May as all three saw increases in revenue. And significant ones, too.

Tinder's net revenue from the App Store grew a whopping 23% in May. Bumble followed with a healthy 19% increase, and the smaller in absolute terms, Hinge, grew the most -- 25% in May.

Together, the trio brought in $140M of net revenue from the App Store in May.

Dating apps are very lucrative and after several years of the bigs dominating we're now seeing the emergence of many niche apps that aren't going after everyone like these three. This is a good sign for all of those apps.

App Intelligence for Everyone!

The insights in this report come right out of our App Intelligence platform, which offers access to download and revenue estimates, installed SDKs, and more! Learn more about the tools or schedule a demo with our team to get started.

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All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.