Garena Free Fire from Garena was the most downloaded mobile game worldwide for January 2022 with 24 million installs, which represented a 51.6 percent increase from January 2021. The countries with the most installs of the app during this period were India (for Garena Free Fire Max) at approximately 25.5 percent of its total downloads and Brazil at 11.7 percent. The full top 10 ranking of mobile games worldwide by downloads for January 2022 is above. Game download estimates are from Sensor Tower’s Store Intelligence platform. Subway Surfers from Sybo Games was the second most installed mobile game worldwide last month with 23.7 million installs, which represented a 58.6 percent increase from January 2021. The countries with the largest number of Subway Surfers installs were India at 20.7 percent, followed by the United States at approximately 7 percent. Roblox from Roblox Corporation, Candy Crush Saga from King, and Race Master 3D from Say Games rounded out the top five most installed mobile games worldwide for the month. The global mobile games market generated 5.2 billion downloads across the App Store and Google Play in January 2022, marking an increase of 2.8 percent year-over-year. The No. 1 market for global game downloads was India, which accumulated 761.8 million installs, or 14.6 percent of total worldwide downloads. The U.S. ranked No. 2 for downloads at 8.7 percent, followed by Brazil at 8.2 percent. Want to see how the rankings compared to the previous month? Check out the Top Mobile Games Worldwide for November 2021 by Downloads here. Store Intelligence users can see app download estimates for the above apps in addition to historical performance metrics on the Sensor Tower platform. Our estimates include downloads for the App Store and Google Play worldwide between January 1, 2021 and January 31, 2022. Apple apps and Google pre-installed apps are excluded. We report unique installs only. Android estimates do not include third-party stores. Figures represent aggregate installs of all app versions, ex: Facebook and Facebook Lite. Garena Free Fire from Garena was the most downloaded mobile game worldwide for February 2022 with 21.8 million installs, which represented a 22.7 percent increase from February 2021. The countries with the most installs of the app during this period were India at approximately 41 percent of its total downloads and Brazil at 9.4 percent. The full top 10 ranking of mobile games worldwide by downloads for February 2022 is above. Game download estimates are from Sensor Tower’s Store Intelligence platform. Subway Surfers from Sybo Games was the second most installed mobile game worldwide last month with 19.5 million installs, which represented a 45.3 percent increase from February 2021. The countries with the largest number of Subway Surfers installs were India at 18.8 percent, followed by Brazil at approximately 7.8 percent. Merge Master, also known as Merge & Fight, from Homa Games, Candy Crush Saga from King, and Roblox from Roblox Corporation rounded out the top five most installed mobile games worldwide for the month. The global mobile games market generated 4.4 billion downloads across the App Store and Google Play in February 2022, marking an increase of 0.7 percent year-over-year. The No. 1 market for global game downloads was India, which accumulated close to 670 million installs, or approximately 15 percent of total worldwide downloads. The U.S. ranked No. 2 for downloads at 8.7 percent, followed by Brazil at 7.8 percent. Wordle from Goldfinch Studios, which has no relationship to the hit web title of the same name that was purchased by The New York Times, had its best month yet for downloads in February. It accumulated 6.7 million downloads, a rise of approximately 171 percent from January 2022. The title was first released in 2016, and up until the end of 2021, had only accumulated 31,800 installs worldwide. During the first two months of 2022, the game racked up more than 9 million downloads off the back of the success of the viral Wordle web game, developed by Josh Wardle. Clash of Clans from Supercell, meanwhile, had its best month since June 2019, picking up 6 million installs in February, a rise of approximately 48 percent Y/Y. A boost in downloads coincided with a new update to the title that featured various quality of life improvements, as well as the new ‘Extra Life for Heroes’ feature, which enables players to return a Hero to battle without waiting for them to heal. Want to see how the rankings compared to the previous month? Check out the Top Mobile Games Worldwide for January 2022 by Downloads here. Store Intelligence users can see app download estimates for the above apps in addition to historical performance metrics on the Sensor Tower platform. Our estimates include downloads for the App Store and Google Play worldwide between February 1, 2021 and February 28, 2022. Apple apps and Google pre-installed apps are excluded. We report unique installs only. Android estimates do not include third-party stores. Figures represent aggregate installs of all app versions, ex: Facebook and Facebook Lite. The top 10 most-downloaded mobile apps of 2021 Apptopia TikTok, four apps from Facebook (now Meta), and and a few social apps are once again top-10 apps globally for the entire year of 2021, according to app statistics compiled by Apptopia. Many of the leaders were down, however, from their download counts for the previous year. Here are the top 10 globally most-download apps of 2021:
Many were down from their download totals from 2020, however. TikTok had 850 million downloads last year; almost 200 million more than the still-impressive 656 million it achieved in 2021. WhatsApp was down over 200 million app installs as well, and Messenger was down from 404 million last year to 268 million this year. Facebook, Meta’s flagship app, was also down, having achieved 540 million installs last year compared to 416 million in 2021. Zoom had 477 million installs in 2020 versus 300 million in 2021. Google Meet and Netflix were on the list last year. But both dropped off entirely this year. On the gainers side, Instagram was up about 40 million installs from last year. And private messaging and groups platform Telegram was the big winner of 2021, up almost 75 million installs from 256 million last year to 329 million this year. A likely reason for the Telegram increase is the desire for more privacy, as well as a flight from mainstream social networks by people claiming censorship on the part of the likes of Facebook and Twitter. Top 10 most-downloaded apps USA Apptopia The top 10 downloads list for the U.S. specifically looks a little different, and shows significant strength in video streaming platform HBO Max, which edged out Netflix and Disney+, both of whom were top-10 in 2020, for top streaming service by number of installs in 2021:
Music and audio is usually an extremely competitive segment, but it’s not even close there. The winner, which more than doubled the global installs of its nearest competitor, is Spotify, which snagged 203 million app installs in 2021. Google’s music app, YouTube Music, was third with 79 million, and Amazon Music was seventh with 44 million.) But there was a very interesting new upstart from a very familiar source that hit the top 10 list despite being available in only three countries. “While Spotify continues to blow all competitors out of the water, a newcomer has gone from not on the top charts at all last year, to all the way to the second most downloaded music streaming app in the world,” says Apptopia VP of Insights Adam Blacker. “That app is Resso, which is owned by Bytedance, maker of TikTok. Resso launched in May 2019. The app is live in Brazil, Indonesia and India.” Top 10 most-downloaded music and audio apps for 2021:
(An important note about Apple Music: it is preloaded on each iPhone and iPad — an interesting antitrust scenario — and therefore does not hit any “most downloaded” lists. One other interesting point: Shazam, which ranked fifth in downloads in 2021, is owned by Apple.) U.S. leaders in music downloads are Spotify, Pandora, SoundCloud, YouTube Music, and iHeart, with SiriusXM and Audiomack also making the top 10 list. Games are always huge, making up more than half of the app in Google Play and Apple’s App Store, and more than half of the app installs. Interestingly, the top 10 most-downloaded mobile games for 2021 is lead by a game that was released almost a decade ago, in May 2012. Joining it are other somewhat aged games like 8 Ball Pool, which has been around for years, and King’s Candy Crush Saga, also launched almost a decade ago in 2012. The top 10 most-downloaded games of 2021:
The top games in the U.S. include Roblox, Project Makeover, Among Us, Bridge Race, and High Heels. Retail is always interesting as well, as the most-download apps provide insight into which retailers are winning mobile, and therefore, in large part winning e-Commerce. While Amazon leads in the U.S. with 40 million installs locally, three apps have more global installs than the U.S. retail giant. Shopee with 203 million, SHEIN with 190 million, and Mesh with 153 million all lead Amazon, which captured 148 million global app installs. Other global players include Flipkart, AliExpress, Wish, Pinduoduo, and Alibaba. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other work here. |