Mental wellness apps saw a surge of first-time installs early on during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the category has continued to witness elevated consumer demand. Sensor Tower’s overview of the mobile wellness market, available now, takes a look back at 2020 trends and forecasts how the category will continue to perform in 2021.
A Record-Breaking 2020
Sensor Tower’s analysis encompasses a range of wellness apps, including home fitness, spiritual well being, and diet & nutrition. Worldwide installs of the top 100 apps in this category exceeded 200 million for the first time ever in April 2020, reaching 238 million globally that month and exceeding 1.2 billion for the year. EMEA represented the largest market for wellness apps in 2020, accounting for about 36 percent of the installs from top apps in the category. It was followed closely by APAC with about 35 percent of top wellness app installs.
Monthly spending in wellness apps saw a boost during 2020, remaining above $100 million per month after March when many stay-at-home orders were enacted. In the first 10 months of the year, consumers spent a record $1.1 billion globally on wellness apps. North American users spent the most in the category, representing about 53 percent of consumer spending, followed by users in EMEA with 30 percent.
Continued Adoption in 2021
Although the velocity of mobile wellness app installs has slowed since the initial spike in Q2 2020, Sensor Tower forecasts that the top apps in the category will see more than 1 billion worldwide installs this year, up 42 percent when compared to about 730 million installs in 2019.
Just as consumer adoption will remain elevated throughout this year, so will consumer spending. According to Sensor Tower forecasts, consumers will spend nearly $1.6 billion in top mobile wellness apps in 2021, up more than 15 percent year-over-year from approximately $1.4 billion in 2019.
For more analysis from the Sensor Tower Store Intelligence platform, including key insights on specific subcategories and consumer spending, download the complete report in PDF form below:
