The big picture: There's been enough appetite in the mobile streaming and gaming markets to drive growth on both fronts. Looking back at 2019, consumers spent $61.7 billion on mobile games, and rushed in to sign up for Disney+, spending almost $97 million on the service in the two months since its launch. Meanwhile, TikTok propelled itself to become the second most downloaded app of the year.
The latest numbers for Q4 2019 from SensorTower are in, and it looks like people playing mobile games spent nearly $62 billion on Android and iOS. That's a 13 percent increase over 2018.
Games made up 68 percent of App Store revenue, and 84 percent on Google Play, which by now shouldn't come as a surprise. The most downloaded title was Call of Duty Mobile, clocking in at 180 million downloads across both stores, marking it as the best quarter since Pokemon Go's launch and social phenomenon in the third quarter of 2016.
No publisher had more than three games in the top 20, which you could say signals strong competition in the mobile space. That is true for apps, too, as TikTok managed to reach the #2 spot worldwide, next to Facebook's WhatsApp.
Overall, Google had more downloads for its apps than Facebook for the first time in five years, mostly thanks to iOS users. But more importantly, Disney convinced 18 million Android users and 12 million iOS users to download Disney+.
This makes it a very impressive launch, despite some regional limitations and technical kinks encountered from 10 million users rushing to sign up for it on day one.
To put things in better context, Disney+ was able to reach more than 70 percent of Netflix's peak revenue in December. In the two months since launch, SensorTower says the app has been downloaded 41 million times and has generated more than $97 million in revenue. And since other streaming apps also saw growth in the same time frame, this means the overall streaming/video-on-demand market has grown larger as a result.