It seems Android users spent their extra time during lockdown trying some new apps.
According to data from SensorTower, 24.3 billion apps were downloaded from the Play Store in Q1 2020. This jumped to 28 billion downloads in Q2 and peaked at 28.3 billion in Q3. For perspective, that represents a 31 percent year-on-year increase.
These were the most popular categories of downloads on the Play Store in Q2 2020:
- Gaming (13.49%)
- Education (9.11%)
- Business (6.95%)
- Tools (5.88%)
- Entertainment (5.82%)
- Lifestyle (5.62%)
- Music and Audio (5.21%)
- Books and Reference (4.51%)
- Personalisation (4.21%)
- Productivity (3.49%)
- Food and Drink (3.46%)
- Shopping (3.43%)
- Health and Fitness (3.43%)
- Travel and Local (3.28%)
- Finance (3.05%)
While there’s a debate to be had for quality over quantity, the iOS App Store has far fewer apps than Android—and much fewer downloads.
In Q2 2020, Android users had 2.7 million apps to choose from. This represents a 5.85 percent increase over the previous quarter.
On iOS, there were 1.82 million apps in Q2 2020. However, this was a 1.2 percent decrease over the previous quarter.
Unlike the Play Store, downloads on the App Store peaked in Q1 2020 at 9.3 billion. This declined to 9.1 billion in Q2 and further still to 8.2 billion in Q3.
However, the launch of the iPhone 12 in Q4 is likely to spur a lot of new App Store downloads over the coming weeks.
(Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash)
