You have probably also downloaded apps from Meta
The analytics firm Sensor Tower released its latest report, covering app downloads in the App Store and Play Store for Q1 2022, and highlights some of the most popular choices from both digital storefronts worldwide. In total, users downloaded 37 billion apps between January 1 and March 31, 2022, of which $ 28.3 billion came from the Play Store. That’s a 1.1 percent increase over this time last year.
In terms of individual app downloads, TikTok remains the best app worldwide on both platforms, surpassing 3.5 billion downloads in total – the only non-Meta app of the five to date that has reached this goal. Everyone’s favorite waste of time has managed to get more downloads than any other service since the beginning of 2018.
Things get a little more interesting when you focus specifically on the Play Store. Worldwide, Instagram is the most downloaded app overall. TikTok has the top spot in the US and Europe, but Meta’s photo sharing service regains it when looking at Asia. Many of the top five slots are similar across regions – Facebook and WhatsApp, for example, appear on most lists, although the ever-popular messaging service has been replaced by Facebook Messenger in the US. The Cash App is also an outlier in that region, while the top five apps in Asia include Shopee and Meesho.
Games follow similar patterns. Worldwide and specifically in Asia, Garena Free Fire was the game with the best downloads. The Count Masters took the top spot in the United States, while the always well-known Subway Surfers landed number one in the EU. Candy Crush, PUBG Mobile and Roblox were some of the more well known names among the most popular downloads globally. Games remain by far the most popular category in the Play Store, which carries “Tools” and “Entertainment” with nearly 10 billion downloads.
The whole report is worth skimming through for in-depth dives on download trends in Australia, an increase in apps for tracking gas prices amid rising fuel costs and the impact Wordle had on apps sharing the same name as the popular web-based title.
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