Apple's iOS app store continues to lead in terms of revenue even while Google Play outstrips it for total downloads worldwide. Photo: Xinhua

Apple continues to dominate app revenue as video streaming booms in China: report

Published: 2:26pm, 20 Jul 2015

China saw explosive growth in video streaming apps as the entertainment category moved up to #4 by worldwide revenue in the second quarter of this year, according to a new report.

According to analytics firm App Annie, the Google Play store remained the most popular by downloads in Q2, but Apple's iOS app store maintained its lead in terms of revenue, helped in part by a strong performance in China, where Google services are almost completely blocked by internet censors.

The iOS app store's worldwide revenue in Q2 was about 70 per cent higher than that of the number one Android store, even as Google Play saw 85 per cent more downloads globally than Apple.

Emerging markets, particularly Brazil, India and southeast Asia, led this trend, while Apple's high revenues were boosted by the company's growth in mainland China, which recently overtook the US in terms of iOS app downloads.

Video streaming apps saw a strong uptick in revenue worldwide, pushing the entertainment category into fourth place by iOS revenue. In China, Youku Tudou was the most popular entertainment app overall, following by Baidu's iQiyi and Tencent Video.

"These apps offer a broad range of content, including Youtube-like user-submitted videos, regional and international movies, popular regional TV shows like The Voice of China, hit international series like Game of Thrones and even original programming," the report said.

iQiyi, which dismissed rumours this week of a buyout by Youku Tudou, recently announced that its paid subscription service hit 5 million customers, a 765 per cent increase on the year before. Youku Tudou also reported daily video views of close to 1 billion, with a 649 per cent year-on-year increase in consumer revenue from subscription and pay-per-view services.

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