I recently spotted a nifty little chart that revealed the top 10 countries with the highest average of downloaded apps. Coming in at the top spot was South Korea, with about 40 apps. The U.S. averages around 32 apps, 25 of which are free. Globally, smartphone users are averaging 25 downloaded apps. But, which apps are people downloading the most?
Back in August, the people over at the market research site GlobalWebIndex compiled a list of the 10 most used smartphone apps in the world in Q2 2013. Here’s what the research found.
The top 10 shouldn’t be all that surprising. It’s no secret that people really enjoy apps that connect them to other people, whether via social networks or social discovery apps.
But, what about the most downloaded apps here in the Unites States? Mashable and Statista also covered that and found the following results.
Again, many of the usual suspects appear in the 15 most downloaded apps, for both iOS and Android smartphone users, here in the States with Facebook dominating the competition. But, there are some interesting observations.
For starters, besides Facebook, the top six apps are all Google products. What makes this so interesting is that typically Gmail, YouTube, Google Play and Google Maps are already pre-installed on Android phones. It seems no matter how people feel about Google, we just can’t enough of the big G.
It was also interesting to notice that apps such as WeChat or WhatsApp weren’t included in the top 15 here in the U.S., but the Yahoo! Stocks and the Yahoo! Weather Widget were. I guess we Americans are more concerned about finance and the weather than meeting or chatting with our friends and family. Then again, the first chart tracked app usage and not downloads like the second chart. So, there is a possibility that more people might have downloaded the Pandora app but didn’t use it as much as the Skype app.
Regardless, both charts plainly illustrate what smartphone owners want to load their phone with, which would be social networks and Google products. That’s some nice, yet obvious, research to be aware of if you’re looking to tap into the app market or knowing which apps will reach your audience the most effectively.
Do you think these stats correctly represent the most popular smartphone apps? And, can you use this research to create a more effective business model?
Source: Statista
