How Many Apps Are There Globally? (2021 Facts and Statistics)

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Mobile apps are an ever-present part of our connected lives. From helping to control features in a car, music streaming, to keeping tabs with old friends on social media. Out of the 7.9 Billion people worldwide, approximately 5.1 billion have access to a mobile device, with over 3.8 billion currently active on social media.

The number of smartphone users worldwide. Image Credit: statista.com

Such figures are an exciting testament to how far the digital revolution has come, with Statista predicting the number of smartphone users to peak at 4.3 Billion by 2023. As the number of smartphone users grows, expect the number of apps globally to rise dramatically. However, before we delve into further technological speculation, let’s answer a commonly asked question.

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How Many Apps Are There Worldwide?

Generally speaking, mobile apps currently affect every aspect of modern human life. From the management of finances, planning of travel, fitness regimes, to even finding a life partner! This means that there should be a plethora of apps, however, an exact figure is difficult to come by. Though some authoritative researchers leverage data from App Stores like the Apple App Store (for Apple devices) and Google Play (for Android devices) to derive respectable figures.

The projected market-share of Operating Systems per year according to IDC. Image credit: idc.com

That being said, according to statistical estimates by Statista, there are approximately 3.04 million apps on the Google Store. On the other hand, Statista also approximates 2.09 million apps exist on the Apple App Store. Statista further reports that about 218 billion mobile apps were downloaded to user’s connected devices in 2020 across all App Stores.

Other conservative reporting from companies like RiskIQ, states that mobile apps globally have now peaked at an incredible 8.93 million. This research report believes that this surge in apps has been fueled by emerging markets like Brazil, India, and Indonesia. For example, India alone has witnessed a dramatic growth of 190% since 2016, reaching approximately 40 billion app downloads by the end of 2019.

The global mobile application market-share as of 2019. Image Credit: grandviewresearch.com

Additionally, the Mobile Finance Report 2020 showed that COVID-19 significantly accelerated the growth of FinTech apps in 2020. Thus, lending more credibility to current estimates about the number of apps available globally. In particular, Fintech that stemmed from mobile banking, has propelled a progressive growth in digital transactions and the adoption of e-wallets. To further validate and cement the approximated figures on how many apps are there globally, let’s see some eye-catching statistics.

Interesting Mobile App Statistics

According to Grand View Research, the international mobile application market size, currently valued at USD 170.52 billion, is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.5% between 2020 and 2027.
Statista forecasts that 184 billion apps will be downloaded by 2024.
In 2020, Spotify had about 9.31 million downloads from Android users.

Reach of the most popular U.S. smartphone apps 2021 Image Credit: statista.com

Ironically, 98% of most app revenue comes from free apps.
Sensor Tower data shows that Apple App Store installs in 2020 grew by 2.5% to 8.2 billion, while Google Play grew 30.3% to 28.2 billion.
In 2020, App Consumers spent 3.5 trillion minutes on Android apps, with YouTube being the most popular app, with a mobile audience reach of 72.8%.
In terms of sports apps, the Premier League app saw a 500K increment in downloads by the end of 2020.
Netflix is the top-rated Android mobile app ever, with an average rating of 4.0 across over 120,000 ratings. This comes as no surprise as the streaming service reportedly spent $1.45 Billion on branding in 2020.

Image Credit: DataReportal.com

Social media are the most visited app category, while dating apps come in second place.
An estimated 2% of app users open specific apps over 100 times per day. Interestingly, apps account for 80% of all time spent on mobile devices.
The most downloaded app of 2020 was TikTok, downloaded 2 billion times in 2020 alone.
In terms of overall downloads across App Stores, Gaming apps lead the pack.
According to Sensor Tower Store Intelligence, worldwide consumer spending and first-time installs of mobile apps across Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store in 2020 climbed to $31.8 billion and 36.7 billion, respectively.

The top remote learning apps of 2020. Image Credit: Sensortower.com

Sensor Tower also reports that consumer spending on in-app purchases, premium apps, and subscriptions climbed by 28% to $20.4 billion worldwide on Apple’s App Store in the first quarter of 2020. On the other hand, Google Play saw consumer spending grow by 36% to $11.4 billion within the same time period.
Interestingly, while Android has a more significant market share in the mobile apps sphere, iOS has a much larger ‘wallet share.’ For the most part, iOS mobile apps account for approximately 1.5x of the total app store revenue in comparison with Android.

Why Mobile Gaming Is a Global Phenomenon

According to analytics from App Annie, spending on mobile games reached $22 billion in 2021. Furthermore, data collected by Tapjoy shows that mobile gamers tend to engage the most with the advertising they receive, in contrast to other app consumers.

Image Credit: sensortower.com

And with the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic, mobile game revenues in the U.S. jumped from $4.5 billion in Q1 to more than $6 billion in Q2, and Q3 at $5.8 billion. From a marketing perspective, mobile games are gold as gamers are interactive and typically provide user input. This gives marketers the ability to effectively identify and measure critical KPIs like engagement, targeting, and completion rates. Hence, why gaming apps are soaring the app stores.

Mobile games also provide app developers with alternate revenue streams like in-player spending. For instance, the top-grossing game of March 2021 was Honor of Kings from Tencent. Honor of Kings made approximately $257.5 million in player spending alone.

Image Credit: sensortower.com

How Many Smartphones Exist Worldwide?

The International Data Corporation (IDC) reported that worldwide smartphone shipments declined by 6.7% in 2020 to reach 1.280 billion units, from 1.373 billion in 2019. However, IDC still expects the market to return to a growth of 5.5% in 2021, with the overall smartphone market expected to reach 1.526 billion units in 2025. Generally speaking, China has the largest number of active smartphone users (926 million), while India comes in second position with 502 million. smartphone users.

The number of global mobile app downloads 2016-2020. Image Credit: Statista.com

Emerging Mobile App Trends to Look Forward to in 2021

In 2021, expect to see more telecoms with fully deployed 5G networks. We expect 5G penetration to positively impact the mobile app experience with faster speeds. In practice, 5G technology promises very low latency (near-immediate responsiveness) and higher network capacity and reliability. This will allow app developers to shift much of the intense computing requirements from phones to servers. Thus, a better app experience for mobile users.
Expect in-game advertising to continue its rapid growth in 2021.
Expect FinTech apps to continue on the trajectory of 2020, into 2021.
World Advertising Research Centre predicts that social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit will continue to chip away at Google and Facebook’s market share in 2021. Digital media spending will again surpass traditional media spending, a trend that started in 2019.
We shall see more contextual voice solutions coming up. These will mainly come in the form of voice assistants reaching more smart devices with situational content. For instance, we could see the arrival of smart(stand-alone) earbuds with Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri built-in to help users with public transport navigation, reply to texts, or listen to music, all via voice.

Alexa maintains a robust standalone app. Image credit: Amazon

Relatedly, in 2021, mobile users shall experience more inclusive shopping experiences. Expect shopping apps to devise new mechanisms to allow shoppers to conduct their transactions through voice. From discovery to selection to checkout, mobile users will experience a seamless shopping journey via Voice tools without accessing apps or other platforms.
Ephemeral content (media format that disappears after a short duration) gained massive traction in 2020. For instance, stories across social apps like Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok consumed a lot of time for mobile users during the COVID-19 lockdowns. For instance, there are approximately one billion Stories shared every day across the Facebook family of apps. Though the niche gained its popularity from Snapchat, other social media platforms later successfully adopted it. Because of its temporal nature, Ephemeral content creators tend to be more spontaneous, increasing the likelihood of the content being more authentic. In 2021, expect more features geared to improving the Ephemeral content experience as more brands tap into this niche and immensely aspirational market.

Final Thoughts

As has been noted, the worldwide App Economy is firing on all cylinders. And since the COVID-19 pandemic, mobile apps have become a more prevalent part of our daily lives globally, where change is the only constant. This was seen as different innovative apps were required to order food, watch movies, or to run virtual classes. And with the rapid advancement in technology, mobile apps will continue to cement their position as the global “go-to” for commerce, content, communication.

Regardless, this seismic shift in mobile app market dynamics demands an audience-first approach as non-gaming apps power the next wave of the app economy. We expect the number of apps worldwide to continue growing in the forthcoming years, primarily due to the increased smartphone proliferation, internet penetration, and the adoption of technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence in mobile apps.