Apple App Store and Google Play downloads grew 8.2% in Q1 thanks to games

Mobile is still growing, and gaming — as with nearly every emerging consumer technology — should get most of the credit.

People downloaded 17.2 billion apps from the iOS and Android app markets in the first quarter of 2016, according to a new report from intelligence firm Sensor Tower. That’s up 8.2 percent over the same period in 2015. As usual, the gaming category made up the most significant chunk of that total with 1.95 billion game installs from the Apple App Store and 4.7 billion from Android’s Google Play. Gaming is 284 percent and 404 percent larger than the next closest categories on iOS and Android, respectively. This data reveals why it isn’t surprising that the global gaming industry is worth $34.8 billion annually and growing.