Google Play is the largest app store by number of apps and downloads, accounting for about half of all app downloads in the world. Launched in 2008 as the Android Market, it followed in the footsteps of the Apple App Store, which had launched a few months earlier.
It didn't take Android long to catch up to Apple in terms of raw numbers, with more apps on the Android Market by 2011. In 2012, Google rebranded most of its Android apps to Google Play, and the Google Play Store which we know today was born.
The next five years saw developers publish more than two million more apps and games on the store, reaching a peak in 2017 with 3.6 million apps available. Starting in 2017, Google started to purge older apps that failed to meet the requirements of its newest operating system update. It also tightened rules for developers looking to get their app on Google Play. This led to over one million apps being removed from the store.
On top of improving quality control, Google has also spent the past few years trying to drive more revenue to its publishers. Even though Google Play is far larger in terms of users, the Apple App Store has much higher consumer spending. It has partly succeeded, with consumer spending on Google Play almost doubling since 2018, however it is still far behind Apple.
Even though Android at its core is an open-source project, with any developer or manufacturer able to create their own version of it, Google's proprietary version is the one almost every smartphone uses. As part of the contract manufacturers sign up to when using Google's own Android fork, the Google Play Store and other Google services must be pre-installed.
Alongside Google not allowing third-party app stores to be installed via the web or added to the Google Play Store, it has effectively shut off all competitor app stores. Samsung, HTC, and other manufacturers launched third-party stores in the 2010s, but without the ability to offer them to Android users outside their own customers, developers paid them little interest.
Similar to Apple, Google has faced complaints from major developers and open-source advocates that this closed-system approach is bad for developers and competition. Several big name developers have complained to legislators in the European Union and United States Congress about the inability to compete with Google on Android.
We have collected data and statistics on the Google Play Store. Read on below to find out more. Want an overview of the entire app economy? Check out our App Data report.
Key Google Play Statistics
- Consumers spent $49.2 billion on the Google Play Store in 2025, an 13% increase on the previous year
- $31 billion was spent on games on Google Play, while $19.2 billion was spent on apps
- Over 100 billion apps were downloaded from the Google Play Store in 2025, an increase of 2.1%
- 36.2 billion of these were games, 67.7 billion were apps
- There are 1.58 million apps available on the Google Play Store in 2025
- Over one quarter of apps on Google Play get less than 100 downloads
- There are over one million Google Play developers with published apps
- The most popular category on Google Play was games, followed by education and business
- Google One was the top grossing app on Google Play for another year with $2.6 billion revenue
- ChatGPT was the most popular app on the Google Play Store in 2025 with 553 million downloads
App Data Report 2026
Want to learn all about the app industry? Our App Data Report covers revenues, downloads, and number of apps across both app stores, alongside most popular and top grossing apps of the year.
- Charts: 200
- Data Points: 3866
Google Play App and Game Revenue
Google Play annual revenues increased by 13% in 2025 to $49.2 billion.
Google Play app and game revenue 2016 to 2025 ($bn)
Google Play app and game revenue 2016 to 2025 ($bn)
| Year | Revenue ($bn) |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 15 |
| 2017 | 21.2 |
| 2018 | 24.8 |
| 2019 | 30.6 |
| 2020 | 38.6 |
| 2021 | 47.9 |
| 2022 | 42.3 |
| 2023 | 45.1 |
| 2024 | 46.7 |
| 2025 | 49.2 |
Sources: App Data Report, Sensor Tower
