Mobile apps make the world go round today. Given how often we make use of one of the many apps on our phones and tablets to shop, read, play, listen to music, communicate, order food, book travel tickets, find answers to questions, and a lot else, it can be difficult to imagine how recent a phenomenon they are. As the app usage statistics compiled below show, the ubiquity of these neatly packed applications in our lives will only keep growing in the near future with app revenues inching close to $200 billion within the next two-three years.
Therefore, whether you are a general user, developer, or marketer, being up to date on the key trends from the fascinating world of apps is essential. For easy reading, we have categorized all the information you need on this subject coming into 2019 under clear headings, beginning with some important points related to the number of apps available at and downloaded from the top app stores.
Apps Downloads Statistics
The world of mobile apps is fascinating. The numbers are getting bigger by the day.
1. The number of smartphone users worldwide will top 3B in 2019.
(Source: Newzoo, Statista)
According to a recent report by market researcher Newzoo, the number of smartphone users in 2018 will cross the 3 billion mark, representing about 39% of the world population. By 2021, the number of users is expected to grow to 3.8 billion, pointing to a tremendous opportunity for app developers. Other sources, like Statista, are slightly more conservative in their forecasts, estimating 2.6 billion smartphone users globally by 2019.
2. Consumers are expected to download 258.2B mobile apps in 2022.
(Source: Statista)
In 2017, consumers downloaded 178.1 billion mobile apps worldwide to their connected devices. This figure was on track to surpass 205 billion in 2018. The wider availability of smart devices as well as increasing competition in the app development market is expected to drive this impressive growth. This data also helps answer how many apps are downloaded in a day (about 700 million).
3. Global app downloads across the Apple App Store and Google Play surpassed 113B in 2018.
(Source: App Annie)
The two largest and most popular markets for mobile apps account for a little over 55% of all app downloads. The total download figure for these two stores is an increase of 10% over 2017.
4. The cumulative number of apps downloaded from the Apple App Store reached 180B in 2017.
(Source: Statista)
Apple App Store was created in 2008, and, since then, there has been a consistent upward curve in the cumulative number of downloaded apps. By June 2017, which is the last reported period by Apple, 180 billion apps had been downloaded. This means that, between June 2016 and June 2017, 50 billion apps were downloaded, while between June 2015 and June 2016, this number was 30 billion. Of course, these figures include native iPad apps also. The corresponding figures for Google Play are not available, but can be expected to be much higher.
5. There were about 3.2M apps available for download in the Apple App Store by July 2018.
(Source: Statista, Statista)
Of these, 811,911 were gaming apps. In the list of the most popular app categories in 2019, gaming comes at the top, followed by business, education, and lifestyle in that order. The corresponding figure for July 2017 was 3.12 million apps, of which about 783,000 were gaming apps. The rate of addition of new apps to the App Store seems to have been slowing down since 2016. Interestingly, by Q3 2018, the number of apps had come down to 2M.
6. There were over 2.6M apps available for download in Google Play in December 2018.
(Source: Statista)
According to Android app statistics, Google Play has seen a decrease of nearly 28% since reaching the peak of about 3.6 million apps in March 2018,. This has been attributed to Google’s efforts to remove low-quality apps, among other factors, though the actual reasons haven’t been disclosed by the company. The majority of the apps in the Play Store are available free of charge, requiring a more effective business model to secure a healthy revenue.
7. There were about 450K mobile apps available for download in the Amazon Appstore in Q3 2018.
(Source: Statista)
The Amazon Appstore, a relatively new competitor in the mobile apps market, has been gradually shoring up the number of apps it offers for Amazon devices. The Q3 figure (452,054) represented a 1.96% growth from the previous quarter and a 20% increase from Q3 2017. The Amazon Appstore does not only offer Android apps but also apps specifically optimized for its range of Kindle Fire tablets as well as the Fire TV and Fire Phone.
8. The top 3 apps stores in terms of number of apps available in Q3 2018 were Google Play, the Apple App Store, and the Windows Store.
(Source: Statista)
Google Play and the Apple App Store led the competition by a huge margin with 2.1 million and 2 million apps in Q3 2018, respectively. Windows Store offered 669,000 apps against Amazon Appstore’s 450,000 and BlackBerry World’s 234,500. The fact that mobile apps are relatively easier to create than computer apps, as well as their considerable lower price has translated into a growing industry which produces every year more and more, prompting the occasional steps by app stores to remove the least popular ones.
