• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, January 16, 2019

Stateside, app adoptions continue to slow, yet growth in this and other mature mobile markets is booming when it comes to indicators of user engagement -- i.e., sessions and time spent -- and consumer spend.

That’s according to the latest analysis from App Annie, which found China accounted for nearly half of all downloads and nearly 40% of total consumer spend in 2018.

Last year, emerging markets continued to fuel growth, and represented three of the top five markets for app downloads.

Apps outside of games accounted for 65% of total global downloads, last year -- which is consistent with trends over the last two years.

On a category level, games globally accounted for 74% of consumer spend in 2018.

Non-gaming apps accounted for 26% of consumer spend, but this was up from 18% in 2016, which App Annie attributes to growth of in-app subscriptions.

The five categories with the fastest-growing global market share -- an indicator of growing faster than the overall market -- were video players and editors, entertainment, photography, tools and finance, respectively.

Combined, total time spent in these five categories grew 110% from 2016 to 2018, per App Annie.

Globally, social and communications apps made up 50% of total time spent in apps in 2018, which was followed by video players and editors (15%) and games at (10%).

More broadly, more than 50% of the world’s population -- or about 3.9 billion people -- were connected to the Web, last year, while 96% live within range of a mobile network.

In 2018, there were over 4 billion mobile devices -- inclusive of tablets and phones -- with many consumers in mature markets in procession of multiple devices.