The mobile applications industry will contribute to the growth of the Spanish economy in the coming years, especially because of its powerful capacity to generate employment. This is one of the main conclusions of  “The app economy in Spain, 2025” study, prepared by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) for the Foundation for the Advancement of Freedom (Fundalib).

According to the data collected for this study, the Spanish app economy actually amounted to  186,000 jobs last July. This figure includes both professionals involved in developing, maintaining and supporting mobile applications and those specialised in ensuring their security.

The AI technology revolution
Artificial intelligence has a lot to do with these figures. Indeed, the report highlights the technological revolution it represents in all kinds of mobile applications. According to the PPI, industries like agriculture, construction, manufacturing and transport will be transformed by the new wave of AI-based applications.

The report explains that, in a sample taken in July 2025, 21% of technology job openings already required skills relating to AI and process automation. Furthermore, it concludes that the next generation of computing will include the integration of AI into all types of mobile applications.

Growing labour market
Since the first mobile apps came into being in July 2008, coinciding with the launch of Apple’s first App Store, jobs in the app economy in Spain have been growing steadily.

In recent years, the country has gone from 122,000 employees in 2019 to 186,000 in July 2025. Of these, 136,000 work in the Apple ecosystem (up from 94,000 in 2019) and 158,000 work in the Android ecosystem (99,000 in 2019). The sum is greater than the total because many professionals work in both systems at the same time.

To measure the difference with neighbouring countries, the report calculates the percentage of employees in the industry as a proportion of the total labour market. Thus, the app economy supports 0.8% of jobs in Spain, above Mexico’s 0.5%, Italy’s 0.6% (in 2023) and Argentina’s 0.2% (in 2024), but behind Germany’s 1.4% in 2023.

^{Photo: Apple}