Google Play had twice as many app downloads as Apple’s App Store in 2015

There were twice as many downloads from the Google Play store globally as there were from Apple’s App Store, according to 2015 stats from app metrics company App Annie.

Overall, the report says, Google Play saw around 200 million (Android) versus 100 million (iOS) downloads over the course of the year, largely driven by Android’s growth in emerging markets. Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey and Mexico accounted for nearly half of Android’s download growth.

While that impressive growth in users might be good news for Google’s ad business – a larger user base means a bigger, more enticing pool of people that advertisers can reach – Apple’s App Store revenue still far outstripped Play, though both made gains across the year.

App Annie says that the App Store’s revenue growth was driven primarily by users in China, the US and Japan, accounting for nearly 90 percent of the increase.

Google is still struggling to shake Apple’s dominance in some markets, however. For example, in the UK, iOS downloads and revenue put the country in fourth place globally for Apple but the UK’s contribution to Google Play doesn’t even make it into the top 10.

Other highlights in the report show an increase in the number of Apple Watch apps – from 3,000 in April to 14,000 by December –  and that global revenue for music streaming services was 2.2 times higher in 2015 than 2014.

Finally, and potentially more concerning for anyone particularly invested in online privacy matters, the report says that all of the top five apps by monthly active users are owned by Google or Facebook – given that 11 percent of the world use Messenger alone, that’s not altogether surprising.

➤ App Annie