App Download Data (2023)

The iOS App Store launched in 2008 with 500 apps. Today, there are over seven million apps available across iOS and Android platforms, extending to every app and game genre and niche.

These apps have come to play a huge role in the way we live our lives today. Through them, we can access the entire Western canon of music (and much beyond it too), meet romantic partners, manage our diaries, documentation, and pay people without cash or card.

Augmented reality apps are changing the way we interact with the world, and mobile gaming now accounts for lion’s share of games industry revenue.

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The market for these apps is about as big as they come. It is estimated that there are over six billion smartphone users worldwide, and about five billion of those have access to the internet. Some of the most popular apps in the world, such as Facebook and YouTube, have more users than China has people.

These devices are approaching ubiquity in advanced economies, among which median penetration levels stand at 76% of adults. In South Korea, 95% of adults own a smartphone.

Emerging economies are catching up. Brazil and South Africa already log penetration levels of 60%, while India’s lower figure of 24% still represents hundreds of millions of users. It is expected that in the next five years many of these markets will reach similar maturity levels to Europe and North America.

These figures are growing every year, and along with it, the market for mobile apps. In 2021, more than 100 billion apps were downloaded for the first time, and that is expected to reach 200 billion by 2025.

What these new apps will contain is anyone’s guess, with Meta Platforms believing the future is in the metaverse and others, like developer of TikTok, ByteDance, seeing a future in algorithm curated news, music, and videos.

We have collected data and statistics on iOS and Android app downloads. Read on below to find out more.

App download key statistics

• 142.6 billion apps and games were downloaded in 2022, a 0.6% decline on the previous year
• 55.6 billion of those downloads were for games, 87 billion were for apps
• Google Play was responsible for 110.1 billion downloads in 2022, iOS had 32.6 billion downloads
• Chinese mobile users downloaded the most apps, followed by India and the United States
• In terms of downloads per capita, China was still ahead, followed by Brazil and Turkey
• Pakistan, Thailand, and The Philippines spent the most on apps per capita

App Data Report 2023

Want to learn all about the app industry? Our App Data Report covers revenues, downloads, and number of apps across the Apple App Store and Google Play, alongside the top grossing and most downloaded individual apps.

App and game downloads

The number of apps downloaded annually declined for the first time, from 143.6 billion downloads in 2021 to 142.6 billion downloads in 2022. That figure was also lower than 2020.

Quarterly app and game downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Annual app and game downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Want to learn more about app data? Check out our App Data report

iOS App and game downloads

iOS noticed a slight increase in app and game downloads in 2022, after a two billion download decline in 2021.

Quarterly iOS app and game downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Annual iOS app and game downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Sources: AppFigures, Sensor Tower, App Data Report

Google Play App and game downloads

Google Play app and game annual downloads declined for the first time by 1%, falling from 111.3 billion to 110.1 billion downloads.

Quarterly Google Play app and game downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Annual Google Play app and game downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Sources: AppFigures, Sensor Tower, App Data Report

Game downloads

Downloads of mobile games increased by 0.5% in 2022 to 55.6 billion, after a 1.4% decline in 2021.

Quarterly game downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Annual game downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Sources: AppFigures, Sensor Tower

iOS Game downloads

Annual game downloads on iOS declined for the second year in a row, declining by 2.3% in 2022. Downloads were 16.3% lower than in 2020.

Quarterly iOS game downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Annual iOS game downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Sources: AppFigures, Sensor Tower

Google Play Game downloads

In comparison to iOS, Google Play has continued to increase annual downloads in 2021 and 2022, albeit at less than 2% each year.

Quarterly Google Play game downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Annual Google Play game downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Sources: AppFigures, Sensor Tower

App downloads

App downloads decreased slightly in 2022 by 1.4%, from 88.3 billion to 87 billion.

Quarterly app downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Annual app downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Sources: AppFigures, Sensor Tower

iOS app downloads

iOS users downloaded approximately 600 million more apps in 2022 than 2021, matching the total app downloads in 2020.

Quarterly iOS app downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Annual iOS app downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Sources: AppFigures, Sensor Tower

Google Play app downloads

Google Play app downloads declined in 2022 by 2.6%, from 64.6 billion to 62.9 billion downloads.

Quarterly Google Play app downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Annual Google Play app downloads 2015 to 2022 (bn)

Sources: AppFigures, Sensor Tower

Downloads by country

China has the most total app downloads, due in part to how many smartphone users are in the country but also because of the high downloads-per-capita.

Annual downloads by country 2022 (bn)

Source: data.ai

Hours spent by country

The hours spent per country almost mimics the downloads, although Pakistan has stepped far ahead of other countries in total hours spent, because of its high usage-per-capita.

Annual hours spent on apps by country 2022 (bn)

Source: data.ai

App usage by age

Teenagers and young adults spend more hours on apps on average, with that figure declining to less 51.4 hours a month for those over 65 years old.

Monthly app usage by age bracket

Source: Simform