The State of App Marketing Germany – 2024 Edition

Germany currently ranks as the third-largest economy in the world by GDP, behind only the USA and China – yet recent economic activity has stalled. Fears of a recession were eased by a GDP bump in Q3 2024, but inflation and unemployment continue to rise.

How will these economic challenges impact Germany’s mobile market in 2025? Despite tough conditions, the mobile landscape remains among the strongest globally, with the tenth-largest smartphone user base as of 2022. High smartphone penetration drives engagement, with over 2 billion apps downloaded in 2023 and users spending 3.5 hours daily on their devices.

Mobile gaming is a billion-Euro industry in Germany, with strategy, casual, and puzzle games leading the way. TikTok earned nearly 100 million Euros in 2023, making it the top-earning app in a country where mobile revenue hit 4 billion Euros last year.

Mobile eCommerce continues to thrive, with in-app purchases growing 15% during the 2023 holiday season compared to Q4 2022. This trend has extended into 2024, reflecting greater consumer confidence in mobile transactions.

In this competitive, high-value market, marketers must deliver personalized, data-driven experiences while navigating strict privacy regulations.

How did marketers and apps perform in 2024? Our latest report on the State of App Marketing in Germany explores key insights in finance, shopping, and gaming apps.

Germany’s burgeoning mobile market has undergone even greater growth in 2024 so far, with overall installs in the nation hitting new heights as part of a steady upward trend. Installs rose by 18% in Q1-3 of this year compared to the same period in 2023, with a 22% rise on iOS. 

Year-on-year growth was much more modest in Q3 of 2024, indicating a potential leveling-off to come in Q4 given the performance in the final quarter of 2023 – but even so, this data represents a hugely positive outlook for the German mobile market.

Germany has seen a remarkable surge in non-organic install (NOI) activity in the past few years, with the volume of NOIs growing steadily quarter after quarter. After three quarters of 2024, NOIs were up by 66% compared to the same period of 2023.
This uplift was particularly pronounced on iOS, which rose by an astonishing 250% in Q1-3 2024 compared to the same period of the previous year. Android boasts a much larger market share in Germany than Apple’s platform, but even with an element of market saturation we still saw a growth of 26% of Android NOIs during this period.

Remarketing conversions in the country followed a similar trend to NOIs, as marketers invested in reactivating lapsed users as well as acquiring new ones. The overall volume of conversions grew significantly, with Android rising by 57% to iOS’ 45% in the first three quarters of 2024 compared to 2023.

2024 has seen further increases in in-app purchase (IAP) revenue in Germany, with particularly strong growth in Q3 that may suggest a successful end to 2024 for apps in the country. Q3 saw an overall rise of 45% compared to the same period of 2023, with iOS – responsible for the greater share of IAP revenue overall – rising by an impressive 47%.

Germany’s finance app vertical has taken off in a big way in the last two years, hitting new heights on iOS in particular thanks to stratospheric install growth. In the first three quarters of 2024, installs of finance apps had increased by more than 300% on Apple’s platform when compared to the previous year. Android rose by 40% during this period.

Although Q3 saw growth abruptly halted, the baseline for finance installs has been raised significantly in the country since the start of 2023.

The upwardly-mobile install activity seen among finance apps in Germany was, to an extent, powered by non-organic installs, with the two metrics following a broadly similar trendline. Android has seen impressive traction among paid acquisition campaigns in 2024 in particular, with a 69% increase in finance NOIs on the platform in Q1-3 compared to the same period last year. This included an astonishing jump of 267% when comparing Q1 with the opening quarter of 2023.

Powering the rising NOI numbers in the finance vertical is an increase in acquisition budgets in Germany in 2024. Since the start of the year, marketers have invested heavily in app install ad spend, with year-to-date growth of 167% when compared to Q1-3 of 2023.

This trend has accelerated throughout the year, with spend in every quarter more than double that of the respective quarter of 2023 – including a huge 228% year-on-year rise in Q3 of 2024.

The finance vertical was already enjoying solid IAP activity in 2024 – and then Q3 arrived, and sent revenue through the roof. IAP revenue for finance apps in Germany was up by 138% in Q1-3 2024 compared to the previous year, but the real story is that phenomenal Q3 growth. In that quarter, Android IAP revenue for the vertical skyrocketed 235%, with iOS increasing by a remarkable 416%.

Despite the strengthening German app economy, the shopping vertical was relatively stagnant in 2024 in terms of installs – perhaps indicating a level of market saturation for shopping apps. Year-to-date installs of shopping apps on Android were down by 5% when compared to the same period of the previous year.

iOS, however, bucked the trend, with 21% install growth during this period, powered by a strong Q2 which saw an uptick of 53%. Notably, that second quarter of 2024 saw a greater number of shopping app installs on Apple’s platform than on Android – largely powered by non-organic activity.

While NOIs of shopping apps stayed relatively flat on Android, iOS – as per the trend of overall installs in this vertical – saw some sizable growth in the middle of 2024. Shopping NOIs on iOS in Q2 were close to double that of the same period in the previous year, and in the year-to-date we’ve seen a 46% increase in shopping NOIs on Apple’s platform.

While shopping NOIs rose on iOS, the actual spend on app installs was down quite significantly in the year to date, dropping by 25% in Q1-3 compared to the same period in 2023. Acquisition spend on Android has picked up again in the second half of 2024, but still sits far below the levels seen in the previous year.

Shopping IAP revenue grew by a modest amount in 2024, up by just 9% in the first three quarters of the year compared to the previous period. That growth was consistent across both Android and iOS, with neither platform making huge strides compared to 2023.

It was, however, notable that Q3 performance was markedly improved from the previous year, with a 29% year-on-year rise overall. While the 2023 holidays barely moved the needle on IAP revenue, this 2024 uptick heading into this year’s holiday period may bode better for retailers.

Installs of gaming apps declined slightly in 2024 to date, dipping by 3% overall in the first three quarters of the year compared to the previous period. As we’ll see, this may be less of a case of declining interest in gaming among users, and more of a reflection of decreased acquisition activity – particularly on Android.

NOIs for gaming apps dipped by 2% in the year to date compared to the same period of 2023, although that was buoyed slightly by an increase in paid activity on iOS – which rose 17%. Android – which commands a far larger market share of this vertical than Apple’s platform – slipped by 5%.

2023 did bring a sizable quarter-to-quarter jump at the end of the year, however; we may well see the same in Q4 2024 as marketers target new device owners around the holidays.

The trend of app install ad spend for gaming correlates with NOIs in this vertical over the past two years: Android was flat year-to-year while iOS spend climbed, albeit with a much lower share of the market. App install ad spend on iOS rose by 14% in Q1-3 2024 compared to 2023, pulling the overall spend trend up to 4% year-on-year.

Marketers should note the significant jump in spend in Q1 of 2024 as we head towards the new year. While this was only a 7% rise compared to the opening quarter of 2023, it represents a steep uplift from Q4 of that year.

While gaming in Germany did not show much growth in terms of installs, the vertical made impressive strides in IAP revenue. A 12% overall rise in 2024 to date compared to the previous period includes a 23% lift in iOS revenue. With gaming one of the highest revenue-generating verticals in Germany, this level of growth shows that gamers are increasingly willing to spend for in-app items or pay up-front for premium games.

In-app advertising revenue among gaming apps enjoyed a rise towards the end of 2023 and into Q1 of 2024, but has been on a downward slope ever since – in contrast to the trend of IAP revenue. IAA revenue in iOS games has risen by 10% in the first three quarters of 2024 when compared to the same period of the previous year, but much of that was down to a strong Q1 with a tailing off ever since.