Mobile App Usage & Download Statistics
We have collected the most up to date statistics about downloads habits, usage trends, and many more. The numbers not only reveal what is going on in the market but also show the psychological peculiarities of the users.
1. Mobile internet usage is rising and the one on the desktop is falling.
This statement is one of the key points in Mary Meeker’s 2019 report. In general internet usage is rising, but the gap between mobile and desktop becomes more and more significant. In 2018 USA users were spending almost 4 hours a day on mobile, which is 12 times more than the decade ago. For desktop, the figures were 2 hours per day and this number was consistent since 2008.
2. 90% of mobile internet is spent on apps, according to the data provided by eMarketer.
Not surprisingly, the gap between the amount of mobile internet and desktop internet is becoming wider and wider. eMarketer predicts that the next year an average adult mobile user will spend up to 4 hours a day with the gadget and almost 90% of the traffic will be poured into different apps, not in the old good browser. So the companies should not just work on the optimization but create high-quality apps for their business.
3. Almost 3 million apps can be downloaded in Google Play Store, as Statista claims.
In June 2020 there were almost 3 million apps published there and ready to be downloaded. Android OS leads the market globally, but the competition here is not that harsh as in Apple App Store.
4. Apple App Store has 4.4 million apps (source: Statista).
There were 4.37 million apps in the Apple App Store published and ready to be downloaded and installed. The data, provided by Statists, shows an interesting twist - the rate of gaming and non-gaming apps here is 1:4, meaning that there are four non-gaming apps for one gaming.
5. 204 billion apps were downloaded back in 2019 and the number is still climbing up (source: App Annie).
The number of downloaded apps increases year by year. In 2019 the worldwide figures hit the scores of 200 billion downloads. If they include re-installing and updating existing apps the amount will be even bigger. It is almost 50% increase, compared to 2016. Three years have passed and the real boom happened.
6. An average amount of installed apps per user is 10 (source: Statista).
Towards the end of 2019, the survey was conducted. It showed an interesting fact – almost ¾ of all the respondents said that they have around 11 apps installed on their phones. In the survey, they did not include the pre-installed ones, so just the apps downloaded by the user. Another interesting fact to consider that there are not that many new apps to be downloaded. Instead, people tend to stick to some of them and use them for a long time. Note here that the number of downloads says almost nothing about the app’s success. If the user does not use your app on an everyday basis or frequently enough, it will soon be deleted. And here the next stat comes. See below.
7. The TOP-1 reason why apps are deleted is not using them (CleverTap).
Ask yourself, how often do you clean the phone memory from the recently installed apps? The main reason why people do that is that these apps are not used. And here we come to a very important topic because it is essential for the business to know why exactly this or that all is not used. Other reasons are lack of phone memory, aggressive ads, and annoying notifications. In general, all these reasons can be generalized and called simple – poor UX or user experience. So the failure depends mostly on the UX you provide.
8. Facebook Messenger is the TOP app worldwide. WhatsApp, however, is the TOP-1 by active users (source: App Annie).
Yes, Google is huge, it is a giant, but yet Fb is winning 4 out of the 5 most downloaded and the most-used apps. Interesting, but quite logical fact is that all the TOP-5 apps are connected to social media and communication. It is absolutely in scope of the most popular app categories.
9. 20% of all the apps in the Apple App Store are gaming apps, and only 10% are business ones.
The most popular category for developers in the Apple App Store is gaming apps. And 20-25% of all the apps are in this category. The second-highest category is almost twice smaller. So if you are focusing on the gaming app to launch, prepare yourself for tough competition. But the winner gets it all, so if you succeed, you will be on the wave of this booming industry.
Source: Statista
10. Users spend half of their time in social media or communication apps.
Social media apps, communication apps, and so on are the most frequently downloaded ones, but also the most used. According to the research, people spend almost half of their time on the smartphone in these apps. Video and entertaining apps share the second place. TikTok, Netflix, and so on have more than 20% of the usage time. But as the example of TikTok shows, the line between these two categories is blurring, so youngsters use these apps for similar purposes.
Source: App Annie
11. Users launch music apps daily more than any other category.
Yes, users spend most of the time in social media apps, but at the same time, music apps are absolute leaders of launching attempts per day. On average people launch them three times per day. Users seem to log into Fb, Instagram and texting apps on an everyday basis, so the fact that music apps turned out to be launched much, much more often is the piece of data difficult to understand, so businesses should focus on it in the future to get the whole meaning of this data.
Source: Statista
