Fitness and health in-app spending was up 70% in 2020

Europeans spent 70.2% more in health and fitness apps in 2020, according to new data from SensorTower.

That comes in at an estimated $544.2 million in consumer spending driven by a desire to stay fit among the challenges of COVID-19 lockdowns of gyms.

It’s a notable increase, especially compared to 2019 when consumer spending rose 37.2% to $319.8 million.

Consumer spending in apps reached a peak during Q3 with gross sales of $148 million, up 83.3% year-on-year.

Among the top apps were Strava, Calm and Headspace.

The App Store accounted for the lion share of spending in the categories at 72.2% of total revenues, while Google Play generated 27.8% in total revenues.

The UK ranked first for spending ($160.6 million), followed by Germany ($89.3 million) and France ($56.4 million).

Sales in-app accounted for 30.3% of global seeding in the category.

Overall, health and fitness app spend grew faster in Europe than globally.

Meanwhile, downloads jumped 46% to 829.5 million (compared to just 7.4% in 2019).

Downloads peaked during Q2 2020, up 80% year-on-year.

Google Play accounted for the majority of downloads at 516 million or 62.2% of downloads, while Apple generated some 313.3 million downloads.