The established narrative with mobile technology is that Google's Android dominates in terms of sheer number of users and devices, but Apple's iOS collects the lion's share of the profits. Nothing changed about that situation in 2015, according to App Annie's annual report, with the trends actually becoming more exaggerated. Android kept up its trajectory of prodigious growth and achieved roughly twice the app downloads of its nemesis iOS, which seems to have plateaued over the past couple of years.

App Annie explains Google's expansion as being driven by emerging markets like India, Mexico, and Turkey, which are getting increased access to cheaper and more capable Android handsets. The Google Play Store has also shown strength in the United States, says the app analytics firm. Apple is, however, still very much in the lead when it comes to the commercially more important metric of app revenue. In 2015, iOS collected 75 percent more revenue than Android, owing to the proliferation of subscription services and in-app purchases. China, in particular, has been the source of "incredible gains" for Apple, which recorded a 20 percent increase in downloads between 2014 and 2015 and a doubling of revenues in the country.