Fourteen times more. That’s the gap between what foldable phone users spend on in-app purchases and what the rest of us spend. Not double, not triple. Fourteen times. Google dropped that stat on its official Android Developers X account, and it’s the kind of number that makes you stop scrolling.
As Android Authority reported, the claim appears both in the post’s text and in an attached video. Google didn’t provide a breakdown of where that spending goes, no dollar figures, no category splits, just the headline number. In-app purchases cover a lot of ground though, from Google Play subscriptions to in-game currency, so it’s genuinely hard to know what foldable owners are actually buying.
The audience for this message is pretty clearly app developers. Foldables are still a small slice of the overall smartphone market, but Google’s point is that the people buying them tend to spend big inside apps too. So if you’re a developer who hasn’t bothered to optimize your app for a larger, folding screen, you might be leaving serious money on the table.
It doesn’t take much guessing to figure out part of the reason why. Foldable phones are expensive. The Pixel 11 Pro Fold starts at $1,900, compared to $1,100 for the standard 11 Pro. People dropping that kind of cash on hardware are likely comfortable spending on software too. They’re enthusiasts. They probably have the disposable income to match.
But still, 14x is a striking claim, and without more context it’s tough to evaluate properly. Is it 14 times a very small base number? Are subscriptions doing most of the heavy lifting? Google’s internal data almost certainly backs this up, but the lack of specifics makes it feel more like a pitch than a full picture. And that’s fine, it is a pitch, aimed squarely at developers who need a reason to care about foldable optimization.
The bigger trend here is real though. As foldables slowly grow their user base, the argument for building apps that actually take advantage of the form factor gets stronger. If those users really are spending this much, developers who ignore foldables aren’t just missing a design opportunity. They’re missing revenue.