While the number of downloads kept increasing between 2016 to 2022. However, in 2023, the global app downloads stagnated, reaching 257 billion downloads and experienced only a one percent year-over-year increase.

The app market Mobile apps are projected to generate more than 613 billion U.S. dollars in revenues in 2025, with mobile games making up the biggest revenue share among all app categories. In 2020, gaming and video made up the largest shares of the mobile content market for the year. The ePublishing and education sectors still saw a limited market for their mobile content, despite the increase in apps usage brought by the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting regular school system settings.

App monetization: a changing landscape As an indispensable part of the smartphone experience, the largest number of apps in the major app stores are free to download. However, in recent years, the growth of global consumer spending on apps has shown users’ healthy appetite for premium services or paid app content. In the second quarter of 2021, Android consumers have spent an average of 5.31 U.S. dollars per handset, after peaking in the last quarter of 2020 reaching an average of 10.6 U.S. dollars per mobile device. As of September 2021, the number of paid apps has shrunk to make up only six percent and four percent of the total numbers in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, respectively. In comparison, apps offering subscription plans are becoming increasingly popular in the monetization landscape. In 2020, the leading subscription apps in the Apple App Store generated more than 10 million U.S. dollars in global revenues.

In 2024, TikTok was still the most downloaded mobile app worldwide. The short-video sharing app generated 825.5 million downloads during the same year. The social video app Instagram followed with 817 million downloads. Fast-fashion app Temu ranked in fifth, with over 516 million downloads for global users in the last examined year, while ByteDance-published video editing app CapCut had around 410 million downloads. TikTok Owned by the Beijing-based tech company ByteDance and launched in 2017, TikTok quickly gained popularity after the acquisition of Musical.ly in 2018. In 2025, the number of TikTok users worldwide was expected to exceed 955 million, with the United States being one of the leading markets. In 2024, TikTok engaged the largest audience from Indonesia, with over 157 million consumers from the region using the app. United States, and Brazil followed with 120.5 and 105.2 users, respectively. Meta Platforms In October 2021, Facebook was renamed and rebranded as Meta, with the CEO Mark Zuckerberg aiming to be associated with the metaverse. Meta’s products include Facebook, Messager, Instagram, and WhatsApp, also known as Meta’s Family of Apps (FoA), generating most of Meta’s revenue. Moreover, these are among the most popular social networks worldwide. As part of its rebranding, Meta’s Reality Labs business segment develops a series of virtual reality (VR) headsets, the Meta Quest - one of the leading VR devices on the market.

App Download Key StatisticsApp and Game DownloadsiOS App and Game DownloadsGoogle Play App and Game DownloadsGame DownloadsiOS Game DownloadsGoogle Play Game DownloadsApp DownloadsiOS App...

In 2023, the number of mobile apps downloaded in Indonesia reached approximately *** billion, indicating a slight decrease from the previous year. In that year, the average amount of time spent on mobile apps per user was **** hours per day.

In the first quarter of 2024, users downloaded approximately **** billion apps from Google Play. This represents a decrease compared to the first quarter of the previous year, when Android users downloaded approximately ** billion apps from the Google Play Store. In contrast, mobile app only generated roughly *** billion downloads in the Apple App Store. The Google Play platform has always made up the bulk of app downloads but the Apple App Store is stronger in terms of revenue generation.

In 2024, the number of mobile apps downloaded in Vietnam reached nearly *************, indicating a decrease from 2022. In the same year, Vietnam was among the countries with the highest number of mobile app download worldwide.

In 2026, consumers are projected to download 143 billion mobile apps from the Google Play Store, up by almost 30 percent from 111 billion apps downloaded in 2021. By comparison, consumers will amass approximately 38 billion downloads from the Apple App Store in 2026, an increase of around 15 percent compared to the number of downloads in 2021.

In 2021, gaming apps generated more than **** billion downloads from users worldwide. Tool apps were the second-most popular app category with ***** billion global downloads. Social media apps ranked third, amassing almost ** billion downloads across iOS and the Google Play Store in the examined year. In 2021, users worldwide downloaded approximately *** billion apps to their mobile devices.

Russian users installed mobile apps over 5.6 billion times in 2023, which was more than in the previous year. Russia is one of the largest app markets by downloads worldwide.

In 2022, Google Play users worldwide downloaded 110 billion mobile apps, down from 111.3 billion apps in 2021. Generating significantly more downloads than it’s iOS counterpart, the Apple App Store, Android apps on Google Play are available for a wider range of devices than those catering to Apple's closed ecosystem.

Google’s app sales continue to climb Google’s success was equally reflected in its app revenue which has steadily increased each year, reaching 38.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2020. Since 2019, the highest average number of apps released monthly on Google Play was 141.4 thousand in March 2019. Meanwhile, August 2021 saw the lowest number of apps released within the last two and a half years. Despite its success in the mobile app arena, the tech powerhouse still generates the vast majority of its revenues from advertising.

Social and dating apps are among most popular in 2021 In the first quarter of 2021, one year into the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns, the number of available dating apps grew by nearly 24 percent. Meanwhile, travel apps saw relatively little growth during this period. Facebook-owned Instagram was the most downloaded Android app in July 2021. With travel restrictions still in place in many regions of the world, communication and social apps such as Snapchat, TikTok and Telegram also featured among the most popular apps downloaded that month.

In February 2025, ******** was the most-downloaded app for iPhone in the Apple App Store worldwide. DeepSeek generated around ** million downloads from iPhone users, while ******* was the second-most popular app, with approximately **** million downloads from global users in the examined month. ****** ranked third, with ** million downloads worldwide.

In 2023, it is estimated that the annual number of app downloads worldwide will amount to *** billion, up from approximately *** billion global app downloads in 2020. As of August 2020, the most-downloaded app category were gaming apps, accounting for nearly half of all app downloads. Social media apps were ranked second with a **** percent market share.

Between 2023 and 2024, games dominated the app market, with the category generating over 40 percent of all app downloads worldwide. Photo and video apps were the second most downloaded category, making up 10 percent of all downloads. Conversely, apps related to business and music had four percent of all downloads, respectively. The most downloaded gaming apps in March 2024 were "Ojol The Game" on Android and "Call of Duty: WarZone Mobile" on iPhone.

Brazilian app 99, formerly known as 99 Táxi, had surpassed 100 million downloads on Android devices by the end of 2022. Food delivery apps iFood and Rappi surpassed each 50 million downloads on the Google Play Store. Meanwhile, Uruguay-based PedidosYa also figures among the most popular disruptive mobility Latin American apps, with more than ten million unique installs. Other popular delivery apps in Latin America include SinDelantal, Jüsto, and Yummy Delivery.

Vidio, an Indonesian based over-the-top video streaming service app, was downloaded about 16.23 million times in Indonesia in 2023. The number of downloads of Vidio app in Indonesia peaked in 2022, at approximately 24.6 million downloads.

Between 2021 and the end of 2023, China was the leading country for app downloads by far. In 2023, mobile apps in China saw approximately 113 billion downloads from users in the country. Mobile apps in India reached 26 billion downloads during the same year, while users in the United States generated approximately 12.6 billion downloads. In recent years, mobile apps downloads have been experiencing a positive growth trend in the majority of the examined countries.

As of May 2020, apps from U.S. publishers generated an average of 1.24 million downloads per app. In contrast, the average number of downloads for all apps was 149.26 thousand per app.

The Google Maps mobile app reported the highest number of downloads worldwide among the selected travel apps in 2024. That year, this app recorded nearly *** million aggregated downloads on iOS and Google Play. The Uber app was the second most downloaded app in the ranking, with almost *** million downloads. The online travel agency app market Focusing on the online travel agency (OTA) market, Airbnb topped the ranking of the OTA apps with the highest number of downloads worldwide in 2024, ahead of Booking.com. When looking at the number of downloads of leading OTA apps in the U.S. that year, Airbnb recorded again the highest figure, while Expedia ranked second in that case. How big is the travel app market? In 2023, the travel app market's global revenue reached nearly *** billion U.S. dollars and was forecast to increase steadily over the following years. When breaking down the global travel app market's revenue by country, the United States and China ranked by far as the biggest players that year, generating around *** million and *** million U.S. dollars, respectively.

In July 2024, the Indian subscription service Sony LIV Netflix was the leading video streaming app based on the number of downloads worldwide, with roughly 15.6 million downloads. Netflix followed, with 14 million downloads. Max ranked third, with around 12.4 million downloads during the examined month.

From January 2020 to June 2024, app downloads of Walgreens in the United States peaked in December 2020. Users downloaded the Walgreens app roughly ******* times during that month. In June 2024, the app was downloaded around ******* times.