Sensor Towers Reveals: Non-Game Mobile Apps Outspent Gaming Apps in 2025
The app economy just flipped the script—and the revenue stream.
For years, mobile gaming dominated the digital spending landscape. It was the undisputed heavyweight, the cash cow that fueled platform growth and investor dreams. That era has officially ended.
The Great Pivot
New data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower confirms a seismic shift in consumer behavior. In 2025, total spending on non-game mobile applications finally surpassed spending on their gaming counterparts. The numbers don't lie—the tide has turned.
This isn't just a blip. It's a fundamental reallocation of digital wallet share. Users are now pouring more money into productivity suites, creative tools, streaming subscriptions, and niche utility apps than into chasing the next in-game power-up or cosmetic skin. The 'utility premium' is in; the 'play-to-win' model is getting a reality check.
What's Driving the Change?
Look beyond the screen. The rise of remote and hybrid work models cemented productivity apps as essential, not optional. The creator economy boom turned sophisticated editing and design software into must-haves. And let's be honest—subscription fatigue is real, but we keep signing up, trading one-time game purchases for recurring access to music, fitness, and learning platforms.
The finance sector, always late to the party, is probably scrambling to re-categorize 'entertainment tech' stocks as 'essential infrastructure' now. A classic move.
The New Arena
For developers and investors, the battlefield has changed. The metrics for success are evolving from daily active users and session length to lifetime value, retention, and solving real-world friction. It's a less flashy game, but the stakes—and now the revenues—are even higher. The app store is no longer just an arcade; it's the toolbox for modern life.
Generative AI drives more consumer spending in non-game mobile apps
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The report revealed that the surge in consumer spending on non-game mobile apps was driven by strong revenue growth in generative AI. The research firm also found that social media and video streaming productivity fueled the activities in non-game mobile applications.
Sensor Towers argued that last year’s generative AI trend was a defining sector that boosted revenue growth, driven by in-app purchase revenue. The report revealed that in-app purchases reached $5 billion last year. Consumers also doubled their AI app downloads from the year before to approximately 3.8 billion in 2025.
The mobile research firm attributed generative AI’s growth to several factors, including the popularity of AI assistants among consumers. The report revealed that the top 10 apps by downloads were AI assistants, led by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and DeepSeek.
Source: Sensor Towers. Generative AI download trends by subgenre.
OpenAI reported that consumers spent more than $3 billion on ChatGPT, with an estimated $2.48 billion spent in the mobile app in 2025 alone. The figure represents a 408% year-over-year increase from the $487 million spent the previous year.
The research also found that consumers spent 48 billion hours in generative AI apps last year. Consumers have spent nearly 3.6x as much time in 2024 as in 2024, and 10x the level seen the year before.
Consumers also topped 1 trillion in the number of times they opened and used an app. Sensor Tower revealed that consumer session volume in AI apps was growing faster than app downloads. The research firm argued that existing users were getting more involved in AI apps than the apps were adding new users.
Big tech companies, including Google, Microsoft, and X, also drove AI app revenue and adoption higher last year. The report revealed that such tech firms have been pouring more investments into their AI assistance to challenge ChatGPT.
Big tech firms have been rapidly developing new capabilities for their AI assistants. The initiative aims to advance AI assistants in areas such as coding assistance, content generation, accuracy, reasoning, and task execution. Sensor Tower specifically pointed to improvements in image and video generation initiatives, including Google’s Nano Banana and ChatGPT’s GPT-4o image generation model.
OpenAI and DeepSeek lead in global downloads
The report also revealed that OpenAI and DeepSeek led in global downloads, accounting for around 50% of all downloads in 2025. Both AI firms saw a 21% increase in global downloads compared to 2024.
The top AI publishers also saw their market share surge last year, from 14% to nearly 30%. The growth surpassed earlier ChatGPT competitors like Nova, Codeway, and Chat Smith.
Sensor Towers also found that mobile apps played a greater role in connecting users to generative AI services. According to the report, AI assistants saw more than 200 million users in the U.S. last year.
The report also revealed that 110 million users accessed AI assistants exclusively on mobile devices. The audience grew from only 13 million mobile-only users in 2024. Sensor Towers acknowledged that mobile is increasingly interconnected, but country-specific tariffs and regulations make deep market knowledge critical.
The research firm also reported that games are currently competing with social and AI apps for time spent. The report revealed that capturing user attention is the fastest way to monetization, retention, and long-term growth.
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