As compared to integrated software systems on computers, each mobile app typically offers specific functionalities to smartphone users. According to a 2023 survey of users in several global markets, chatting or sending e-mails were the leading mobile activities for 75 percent and 71 percent of respondents. In comparison, entertaining and leisure activities such as listening to music and watching videos on smartphones were popular for around 60 percent of respondents.
Leading mobile app distributors
While some devices have apps pre-installed, users can select apps through application stores such as the Google Play store for Android, the Apple App Store for iOS, or third-party providers like the Amazon Appstore. When comparing the platforms, Google Play generates the largest amount of worldwide app downloads. In the first quarter of 2023, users downloaded 27 billion apps from Google Play, signaling a slowing growth trend for the year when compared to the 28.3 billion downloads recorded in Q1 2022. However, the Apple App Store dominates the market in terms of revenue, accumulating 83 billion U.S. dollars in consumer spending on apps in 2022, over double the amount Android users spent on the Google Play Store in the same year. Despite market predictions that would see the Apple App Store experiencing a loss in net revenues in September 2022, and a slower growth trend concerning digital companies as of the beginning of 2022, the Apple App Store is forecast to generate 125 billion U.S. dollars by the end of 2027.User engagement slows down
As of the third quarter of 2022, there were over 3.5 million apps available on the Google Play Store, and approximately 1.6 million apps on the Apple App Store. In 2022, global user engagement saw a slowing down compared to the peaks reached during the first outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In 2022, app engagement experienced an increase of only three percent year-over-year, while between 2019 and 2022, the time spent using mobile apps for global users increased by approximately 46 percent, with users arriving to spend over five hours and a half daily using apps. While mobile social media and communication platforms still rank as the most engaging app category, time spent on this type of apps has decreased to occupy 42.4 percent of all global time spent among smartphone users, down from the 43 percent share registered in 2021.User preferences crown video apps over photo trends
In 2022, the short-video format popularized by ByteDance-owned social app TikTok continued to command a higher level of engagement from global users across several social platforms, such as YouTube with its YouTube Shorts and Instagram with its Reels. As of July 2023, YouToube Shorts reported two billion monthly active users among its logged in YouTube audience.While the popularity of short-video apps is stable, photo app BeReal, which launched in 2019, has experienced a slowing growth trend in the first half of 2023, after becoming popular in 2022 especially among Gen Z users and U.S. college students. The social media and photo-sharing app,, which allows users to post only a limited number of times per day and uses a dual camera to capture both a selfie and a regular photo, generated only approximately 91 million downloads between January 2020 and April 2023, a figure which was eclipsed by TikTok’s global downloads reaching over 2.7 billion during the same period.