San Francisco, June 29 (IANS) Apple's App Store is still seeing considerable growth with consumer spending said to be up 22.1 per cent year-on-year for the first half of 2021, a report said on Tuesday.

According to Sensor Tower, the first half of 2021 has been an extremely profitable period for digital storefronts, including Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store.

In a report released by Sensor Tower on Tuesday, the company claims that consumer spending is still growing for both of them, AppleInsider reported.

Between the two storefronts, global consumer spending reached $64.9 billion for the first six months of 2021. This is said to be up 24.8 per cent from the same period in 2020 when it generated $54 billion.

The growth may have been helped by the Covid-19 pandemic, but Sensor Tower asserts the main boost in sales stemming from that arrived in the first half of 2020, which saw 28.4 per cent year-on-year growth from the same period in 2019.

On a per-store basis, the App Store is continuing to lead Google Play, taking in $41.5 billion from app purchases, in-app purchases, and subscriptions.

This represents a YoY growth of 22.1 per cent from $34 billion, though this is lower than the 29.3 per cent YoY growth between the first half of 2019 and 2020.

By contrast, Google Play raked in $23.4 billion from the first half of 2021.

While lagging in revenue, this does still represent increased growth compared to Apple, as spending swelled YoY by a larger 30 per cent from $18 billion.

--IANS vc/sdr/