As we all progress towards 2025, smartphones, the internet, and mobile apps are the top three factors affecting the global economy. Our daily lives mainly depend on mobile applications around all known & the most used apps worldwide. Mobile app businesses bridge the gap between the existing market and head towards the new normal. From the food we intake to clothes we wear, to the medical assistance we need, everything is possible with application. Also businesses have understood this need of the users and come up with the possible outcome in the form of mobile applications. Thus the most popular app in the world cater to our day-to-day life. In the event we can consider the top downloaded apps as the most popular but the list below is based on various other factors that impact our day-to-day life.
As a matter of fact, in a survey, it was noted that mobile platforms fueled 45% of the decisions of the people. People now quickly estimate any existing risks in their financial decisions with the key indicators. So we can’t deny how online applications transcend our way of life.
- The Trend
- Apps that picked up popularity during the pandemic
- More stats for top-used apps
- Reasons that draw the user’s attention to consume the apps daily?
- Most Popular Mobile Apps in 2025: Worldwide
- Most popular apps in the world 2025: Countrywise
- Most Popular Mobile Apps By Categories
- Based on Categories
- A. Most Popular Apps in 2025: Social apps
- B. Most Popular App in 2025: Gaming Apps (source: Statista)
- C. Most popular app in 2025: eCommerce apps
- D. Most Popular application in 2025: Travel apps
- E. Most Popular & Top mobile applications in 2025: Dating Apps Source: apptopia
- F. Most Popular Apps in 2025: Education apps
- Recent apps making it big
- G. Most Popular Apps in 2025: Health and Fitness applications
- H. Most Popular Grossing Apps in 2025: Video Streaming
- I. Top Breakout Video sharing applications Worldwide 2025
- Based on Categories
- Top Trending Technologies aligned with the Mobile Applications in 2025
- Conclusion
- FAQs
The Trend
The global market is inclined with the dependency of fully remote working models, financial planners, parking spaces, telehealth and medicare, power-packed games, entertainment, and many more. This gauges the consumption of the digital platform in essence.
Now, looking more into it, the creator community is the new trend in the mobile app segment. Creators are the ones who grab the first row of people. In this club, we can see many short video app development platforms like Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, or TikTok. Creators have their selling swag to reach wider audiences, which helps them to monetize directly through it. This increases the number of installs of the short-form video format.
Revenue generation
While in-app purchases have generated 15% revenue over the past few months. Consequently this opens up the door for many new creators and businesses to land in this highly eye-catching market.
Buy-now-pay later (BNPL), have you heard about this quirky and catchy thing?
Yes, over the years, BNPL has been on the trend. More than 6.8M of the BNPL apps were downloaded in the year 2020.
Under this low-cost pricing service, users can pay for the purchase at the end of the stipulated time period. At the time of purchase, the user just needs to pay a small amount. The top players in this section are Klarna, Afterpay, and Affirm, while in the Indian market, ZestMoney, LazyPay, Simpl, and Amazon Pay Later are the top performers. This kind of concept attracts the customer more promptly.
At the present time after the boom in the trend of buying and selling of items, the eCommerce market has seen an immense global impact over the years.
Apps that picked up popularity during the pandemic
We have seen in this pandemic that the usage of the internet has explicitly aroused 89.2% of the mobile time. After all many more new digital products dig their arms in the mobile gaming and streaming of apps.
Transportation is a major part of our day-to-day life. Transit apps are the real-life savior in such scenarios. It helps the user to locate the convenience very easily. These apps facilitate the real-time availability of the vehicles within the estimated prices.
By all means in this blog, we have forecast for you the list of top mobile apps in every existing genre to plan your next mobile app match with the current trend of the industries to transform the world with full potential.
We have arranged for you the optimal tabular format that will be easier for you to understand, the clear observation of the statistics of the categories-wise mobile apps. We have done skilled research before inserting any of the stats here.
Let’s look into some of the stats about the most popular & top apps in the world in 2023-24.
Market Stats for the most used apps in the world in 2022-24
Before moving into the start of your own app journey you need to understand more about the stats of the mobile app industry.
- The global market of apps was estimated to be $106.7B in 2018 and is progressively growing at an annual rate of 18.4% with a value of $407.31B by the year 2026.
- According to Statista, the global mobile app downloads in 2020 were found to be 218B in figures. That’s huge!
- The number of smartphone users worldwide is 6.37B in the year 2021.
- The monthly active users of TikTok is 1B in 2021, with 66M downloads.
- Whatsapp is the top app for Android users, while Instagram is the most lovable app for iPhone users.
More stats for top-used apps
- China is the leading nectar of smartphone app users with 911M users, America is the next with the presence of 270M users.
- Top technologies emerging in the market: IoT (457B), AR/VR (120B), AI (40B), and chatbots with a 1.86B revenue presence.
- 196B and 42B mobile apps were downloaded from Google Play and Apple App Store respectively. That is absolutely breathtaking. This generates a combined revenue of $693B.
- In addition to this, coming mobile app trends like 5G, wearables, beacon technology, AR/VR, Bots, progressive Web Apps, and cross-platform apps, surge humongous over the years into the segment of the apps.
- As per the business of apps records, 56.1B app downloads are from the gaming industry.
- The e-commerce global market has a worldwide sale of $4.89T in 2021.
Reasons that draw the user’s attention to consume the apps daily?
With cheaper internet and more resources, it is not only the entertainment industry that is gaining popularity in the market, but various other day-to-day applications like grocery delivery, food delivery, real estate based, dating, etc.
With the black swan of events in the past couple of years, people choose to stay indoors and use various mobile applications for almost everything that once needed physical presence. From attending office meetings to consulting the doctor, everything is possible in just a click. Equally important things people have developed work and office life balance.
It is more of a safety concern now than just comfort. With the application market growing strong and interesting we affirm to bring to the picture solutions that can keep your audience and business in a comfortable zone that earns well.
Today, with this blog we have uncovered for you some of the reasons why the user has so much dependency on the mobile apps? Why most used apps in the world can not be resisted. All this information could help you to succeed in the market.
Most downloaded apps in the world
- For instance, Tiktok has created a remarkable turn into the short app video segment. After its ban, who would be the next giant in 2025. Is it a question of the hour?
- Social media creator apps drive a major part of the economy. Hence Facebook & Tinder like apps are most used apps in the world
- Next to it, the video streaming apps have a fair war in 2025, the concern of big heat into the industry.
- Video apps are also among most used apps in the world, as they surge high revenue profits in the few years, aids value for both users and to the stakeholders.
- Virtual reality space, metaverse, the 3D illusion could be the real game-changers for gaming app. Mobile Gaming is inseparable part for many kids, teens and adults and thus Pubg like games are also top most used apps in the world
- And to the most-awaited question, what are the top apps for download and accessibilities that would join the club of billions? As from time to time the list can change based on various circumstances. Presently we speculate below as the top downloaded apps.
Believe it or not, the stats of the most popular mobile apps or most used mobile applications with thein the world in 2025, turns the market expectations to the highest.
Read Also: Cost to Develop a Mobile Application
Few more influencing factors
Apart from that, there are a few more factors that affect the presence of vast applications in the marketplace.
- In any event User retention rates.
- Gaming must be the popular part of the mobile experience.
- Socially and communication apps are also most used apps in the world.
- Impact of the covid-19 in 2021
- Global smartphones users
- Top downloaded application in September 2021
- Time of usage of the apps on a weekly basis
- Growth in the ML and AI technologies
- AI and ML methods impede the improvements of the camera and security features of more than 200 apps.
With our latest study from some research-driven sites, we have acknowledged for you some of the popular mobile apps in every class.
So let’s begin.
Most Popular Mobile Apps in 2025: Worldwide
The number of mobile app downloads worldwide from 2025 is 299B. Below is a list of the most used apps in the world. Google Play Store with 108.5B downloads and the iOS applications are downloaded 34.4B times. Presently gaming and social media are at the core of the lists.
| Popular App Name | Country | No. of downloads |
| Youtube | USA | 10B+ |
| Google Maps | USA | 5B+ |
| Facebook Messenger | USA | 700M |
| USA | 600M | |
| USA | 505M | |
| Zoom Cloud meetings | USA | 477M |
| Snapchat | USA | 281M |
| Tiktok | China | 62M |
| Cash app | USA | 33.5M |
| Netflix | USA | 16.4M |
| HBO Max | USA | 12.3M |
Source: Business of apps, Statista, Investopedia, Apptopia, and Wikipedia
Most popular apps in the world 2025: Countrywise
USA | UK | China | India | Singapore
1. Most Popular Mobile Apps in USA
| App Name | Publisher Name |
| Poppy Rope Game (game) | Zego Global Publishing |
| Slap n Run | VOODOO |
| Tiktok | TikTok Pte. Ltd |
| Klarna | Klarna Bank AB |
| Cash App | Square, Inc |
| McDonald | McDonald’s USA, LLC |
| Google Pay | Google LLC |
| Tubi ( Free Movies) | Tubi TV |
| Whatsapp Messenger | Meta |
2. Most Popular Mobile Apps in UK
| App Name | Publisher Name |
| NHS app | NHS digital |
| Rocket league sideswipe | Psyonix studios |
| Klarna | Klarna bank AB |
| Handy craft | H8games LLC |
| Tiktok | Tiktok Pte. ltd |
| Etsy: buy and sell | Etsy, inc |
| UberEats | Uber Technologies |
3. Most Popular Mobile Apps in China
| App Name | Publisher Name | Active Users Downloads 2021 |
| Tencent | 1004.93M | |
| Alipay | Ant financial services grp | 845M |
| Taobao | Alibaba grp | 750.91M |
| Pinduodo | Pinduoduo Inc | 740.3M |
| Tencent | 638.81M | |
| iQiyi | iQIYI, Inc. | 605M |
| Baidu | Baidu Core segment | 494.08M |
- Telegram is at the top of the list with the most downloaded in the world for the non-gaming application. This is the most generous app of its kind with the cross-platform cloud-based instant messaging app development that is similar to Whatsapp.
- Coming to the next is Twitter that has surged cross-platform with the full of security ethics. With the short and crisp feature of tweeting short messages to the people, this platform gives the user the freedom of speech.
- WhatsApp is in the race of message exchanging mediums. Although it did not last much time before but has offered a pile of services to the users. It is a cross-platform app, coming with the first motto of sharing instant messages between the users, with full encryption. This means it is tightly secured with two-way integration so that no hacker in the middle could break the chain of messages.
4. Most Popular Mobile Apps in India
| App Name | Publisher Name |
| Meesho: Online Shopping App | Meesho |
| Shopee: Online Shopping | Josh: Short video app |
| Hunter Assassin 2 | Ruby Game Studio |
Snapchat | Snap Inc. |
| AJIO | Reliance Retail Ltd. |
| Truecaller: caller ID & block | Truecaller |
| Pocket FM- audiobooks, stories. | Pocket FM |
| Josh: Short video app | Ver se innovation |
| Noizz: video editor with music | Noizz team |
5. Most Popular Mobile Apps in Singapore
| App name | Publisher name |
| Singpass | |
Telegram | Telegram FZ-LLC |
Shopee | Shopee |
Vast VPN- secure VPN proxy | Vast security innovation lab |
| TikTok | Tiktok Pte. Ltd. |
Now, let’s look upon the category-wise most popular app that enthralled the market.
Most Popular Mobile Apps By Categories
| Category Name | Total percentage share in the market | Downloads |
| Communication and social | 97.9% | 1830k |
| Web browsers | 97.6% | — |
| Utilities and tool | 96.6% | 1230k |
| Entertainment | 95.5% | 1560k |
| Search and reference | 93.2% | — |
| Shopping | 92.6% | 1190k |
(Source: Statista)
Based on Categories
A. Most Popular Apps in 2025: Social apps
| App name | Revenue |
| 2000M | |
| Facebook messenger | 1300M |
| 1213M | |
| 617M | |
| Telegram | 500M |
These stats are retrieved based on the number of monthly active users.
- Social media presence is a must-have for Gen-Z. Most of the core businesses target their campaigns to get user insights.
- As the tally shows the eager interest of the users on the social media trends, like shopping, searching for relevant niche ads and videos, content and so much, it is expected that the market of this domain would be raised with the 34% in the coming year.
- Social media is the ultimate platform to reach the masses instantly and helps businesses to soar their sales and publish their business to the consumers.
B. Most Popular App in 2025: Gaming Apps (source: Statista)
| App Name (Android) | Revenue gain |
| Free fire | 1B+ |
| Among us | 86M |
| 456: survival game | 23.37M |
| Garena free fire max | 20.63M |
| Cookie carver | 19.34M |
| Roblox | 17.23M |
| Candy challenge 3D | 15.04M |
| App Name (iOS) | Revenue gain |
| Among us | 43.99M |
| Roof rails | 20.41M |
| Project makeover | 17.50M |
| Sushi roll 3D- food game | 13.17M |
| Roblox | 10.38M |
| Stacky dash | 9.44M |
People that are playing games on mobile are widely distributed. More than 30% of people are playing their games over their smartphones. This is due to the advancement of the internet in the last few years.
- We can’t deny the trend of the enticing games reflects our younger generations. It’s surely of no hidden surprise, in the coming years this industry is going to boom the market.
- Gaming is not in the same old fashion. It has so many new addons like playing, streaming, and watching, thanks to the 3D the new technology, with the amalgamation of AR/VR, makes the real experience thrive to the users.
- Both Google Play Store and the Apple App Store have seen a growth of 28% in the year 2020.
- Among Us is a popular mobile gaming applications with more than 60M active users.
C. Most popular app in 2025: eCommerce apps
| App Name | Number of app downloads |
| Amazon | 150.6M |
| Walmart | 86.07M |
| eBay | 62.15M |
| Groupon | 35M |
| Etsy | 32.15M |
| Wish | 27.6M |
- As per Statista, the market of e-commerce applications have generated a revenue of $339B in 2020. During the last year, more than one-third of the sales have been from online via smartphones. 54% of the users come to the platform while 33% are triggered to purchase.
- On occasions like Cyber Mondays or Black Friday, sites offered maximum discounts to the users to increase their conversion rate from 33% to 40% in the last year.
- Amazon is at the top of the list to gain a massive number of users focused on the ecstasy of the market. They have followed a friendly consumer conversion model that resolves the headaches of the users and to the busyness of the competitors.
D. Most Popular application in 2025: Travel apps
| App Name | Number of app downloads |
| Uber | 95M |
Google maps | 88M |
Booking.com | 50M |
| Airbnb | 42M |
| inDriver | 27M |
Lyft | 24M |
Source: apptopia
The industry of travel booking has seen a sudden shift in recent years. The estimation of $817 B was accomplished in the year 2020. Thinking on the fact, with an approximation, 700M people are accompanied with these online booking in the year 2025. Impacts the largest holds of the online booking in the market share.
E. Most Popular & Top mobile applications in 2025: Dating Apps Source: apptopia
| App Name | Country name | Revenue |
| Tinder | USA | 34M |
| Badoo | Brazil | 17.7M |
| Bumble | London, UK | 10.5M |
| Tantan | Morocco | 9.2M |
| Tantan | 7.5M | |
| Grindr | 6M |
- As you have seen in the stats, the market of dating apps is humongous among the users’ hearts.
- Tinder clone script and Bumble the two most contriving and they contribute 58% of the dating app market operated by a single company named MagicLab. Tinder is welcomed by the global market in terms of both app download and revenue metrics. Although the niche market is the more explored domain by the businesses over the years.
- Bristlr is the new mane in this niche market to target a specific group of people who have beards. Likewise, there are more chances of scope in the dating niche market.
F. Most Popular Apps in 2025: Education apps
| App name | Number of downloads |
| Google Classroom | 126M |
| Brainly | 102M |
| Duolingo | 77M |
| Byju’s | 41.9M |
| Vedanta | 25M |
| Unacademy | 23M |
Source: appmagic
- Google Classroom with more than 125M+ applications downloaded in the Google Play Store in the year 2020, which is quite improved with the previous year’s stats. This app is aloof, with many stunning features that capture the attention of both students and faculty. Students can take the lecture and save it on the bookmark for the future. Participate in the surveys and many more things.
- Next to the run is Brainly, which is the real champagne in the category. With the huge increment in the rate of 406%. It mainly aids step-by-step guidance to the students, solve math problems quickly, ask the faculty for advice or find a tutor.
Recent apps making it big
Read Also: How to Choose the Best Mobile App Development Company?
- Duolingo holds the UK market with 1.4M downloads in the category of educational apps. It comes in the first category as per the survey conducted in the year 2021. Its top strategized analysis dominates the maximum market of the app. With the conjunction of various foreign languages available in the platform, users can begin from the start and end up with a thrilling and enjoyable experience. A total of 35+ languages are available to learn on this platform.
- Vedantu, Byju’s and Unacademy are the next market leaders. They are marked with excellence in the global market. Solving the relative and the very precise problem of the student.
- Vedantu has grown by 92% and is one of the top most popular apps in the Indian market. Perhaps Unacademy has faced a decent growth of 53% in the last few years.
- As soon as users click the picture of their problem or the equation where they have been stuck in and upload it on the app, they will get the answer straight away.
G. Most Popular Apps in 2025: Health and Fitness applications
| App name | Number of downloads |
| Aarogya setu | 2.56M |
| Home workout- no equipment | 2.11M |
| Muscle booster workout planner | 2.06M |
| Mi Fit | 2M |
| Six pack in 30 days | 1.79M |
Source: Statista
H. Most Popular Grossing Apps in 2025: Video Streaming
| App name | Country name | Revenue share |
| youtube | USA | $19.7B |
| Netflix | USA | $24.9B |
| Amazon Prime Video | USA | $25.21B |
| disney+ | USA | $10B |
| Apple Tv+ | USA | $17.5B |
Source: business of apps
I. Top Breakout Video sharing applications Worldwide 2025
| Breakout app downloads | Breakout consumer spend | Breakout monthly active users |
| Capcut | Youtube | Telegram |
| MX Takatak | Tiktok | |
| Meesho | Disney+ | Zoom cloud meetings |
| Share Karo India | HBO Max | Tiktok |
| VPN Master | Piccoma | Microsoft office mobile |
| Telegram | Tinder | Amazon |
Source: app annie
- Capcut is top on the list of the downloads chart, which is the editing tool for TikTok that influences the video-sharing applications .
- Next to it are the MX TakaTak and Moj which is the replacement of the TikTok in the video-sharing industry after its ban.
- Meesho is the most innovative reselling model that assists the user to make shopping. In this model, there is a third-party entity that works as a catalyst to promote the items on the app.
The app statistics we have mentioned above are definitive and concise, relevant for you with the latest market trends and shifts. This will surely go to assist you with building your own mobile app development services and aid the latest features and functionalities into it.
Top Trending Technologies aligned with the Mobile Applications in 2025
| App Name | No. of the users |
| IoT | 35B |
| 5G | 1.17B |
| AI/ML | 53.2M |
| AR/VR | 85M |
| Beacon technology | — |
Source: business of apps
Conclusion
Summing up 2022 is the best time that affirms that the businesses have derived the solutions that are more generic and personal to the users. Industries with data are planning to build more strategic and consumer behaviour applications . The industry is so rich with plenty of mobile apps, so the presence of technologies makes it more welcoming to them.
Over the years we have made it quite possible for various businesses to survive the changes in the market and make their services better. The audience can now have a normal life without taking pains to leave their house.
The mobile application list that we have developed is researched at various levels to affirm that you take decisions that would make your survival in the market easier and better.
We have tried our best to gather all of the scrutiny information related to the market stats of 2022 mobile apps. We hope it helps you earn better audience and make great profits.
FAQs
Tiktok and Facebook are the two leading applications in the market with a figure of 2.5B downloads.
In our list, the top 10 apps that have a remarkably strong presence in the industry are Tiktok, YouTube, Facebook Messenger, HBO Max, Instagram, Snapchat, Zoom Cloud, Cash App, Netflix.
Survival game is at the top of all games in the year 2025.
Businesses with a growth of 275%. Zoom, Google Meet, and Skype are the leaders in this category.
Finance with a 200% growth. Banking & Trading Apps, and Stock Tickers are the top leaders in this category.
Education app with a 200% growth rate. Study-At-Home and Video Tutorial Apps are at the top.
Food Delivery with 105 growth percentage. UberEats, GrubHub, and DoorDash are the top leaders.
The fitness industry has seen 30% of growth. Home Workout applications such as Nike Training, and Adidas Training in the top.
258B apps are downloaded in the year 2025, with an annual increment of 25%, where 98% of the applications are free.
Yes of course, in the initial level when the startups are in a growing phase, it will be beneficial for them to put some of their money and effort into developing the application.
We have calculated the cost of the mobile app development on the basis of:
Research: 40-80 hrs
Prototyping: 40-120 hours
Development: 80-300 hours
Testing: 40-80 hours
The final cost of the mobile app mainly depends on these factors.
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