The 'State of Mobile 2026' report by Sensor Tower, a prominent source of mobile app insights, reveals comprehensive trends in app downloads and usage among global smartphone users in 2025 across various key categories. The yearly report covers top apps on both the Google Play Store and Apple Store, highlighting shifts in consumer behavior and market dynamics.

Overall, OpenAI’s ChatGPT emerged as the most downloaded app by global smartphone users in 2025. It was closely followed by ByteDance’s TikTok, which secured the second spot, underscoring the enduring popularity and growth of short-form video content, particularly among Generation Z. Meta-owned applications Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp Messenger rounded out the top five, demonstrating the continued widespread use of these platforms. Completing the top ten list were video editing app CapCut, Chinese e-commerce platform Temu, Google’s Gemini, Telegram, and Snapchat, indicating a diverse range of successful applications.

Social media and messaging apps continued to dominate user engagement, accounting for more than 60% of total time spent across all mobile apps in 2025. Despite a slowdown in total social media app downloads, which decreased by 12% from 9.14 billion in 2024 to 8.07 billion in 2025, total time spent within these apps edged up slightly, rising from 3.3 trillion hours in 2024 to 3.4 trillion hours. TikTok, Google’s YouTube, Meta’s Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp Messenger were identified as the top five most downloaded social media apps, with Telegram, X (formerly Twitter), and WeChat also making the top ten.

In the finance sector, Digital Wallets & P2P Payments apps outpaced Cryptocurrency apps to dominate the top ten most downloaded finance applications in 2025. PhonePe, PayPal, Navi, Paytm, and Google Pay led this category, signaling a growing consumer preference shift from cryptocurrency to credit and lending services. Global downloads for finance apps continued their upward trajectory, increasing by 6% year-over-year from 7.7 billion to 8.2 billion, marking the first time finance downloads surpassed 8 billion. Growth in time spent within finance apps also moderated, rising by 8.5% year-over-year to 42 billion hours, following rapid growth in previous years.

The retail segment saw Chinese-based platforms Temu and SHEIN topping the download charts, with Amazon Shopping, Meesho, and Shopee completing the top five. While Temu led in downloads, Amazon maintained its global leadership in usage, averaging 685 million monthly active users in Q4 2025. However, global downloads for retail apps declined by 2% year-over-year to 6.4 billion, a drop partly attributed to slowing expansion from major global players and the impact of growing U.S. tariffs and market saturation, particularly affecting Chinese-based retailers.

Video streaming apps experienced significant growth, with DramaBox, ReelShort, and Netflix leading downloads. This category saw a substantial 39% year-over-year surge in downloads, increasing from 3.8 billion to 5.3 billion, largely propelled by the resurgence of short dramas. Total time spent across video streaming apps also grew by 8% year-over-year, from 101 billion hours to 109 billion hours, while In-App Revenue (IAP) witnessed an 18% year-over-year increase, reaching $14.6 billion.

AI apps demonstrated a remarkable rise in engagement, with AI Assistants being the most popular generative AI applications. ChatGPT, Google Gemini, DeepSeek, Doubao, and Perplexity were the top five most downloaded AI apps. Time spent on AI platforms saw an astounding 240% surge, from 13.4 billion hours to 48.1 billion hours, with session volume surpassing one trillion in 2025, indicating deepening user engagement with AI assistant apps. Other notable AI apps included xAI’s Grok, Seeker, Meta AI, and Microsoft Copilot.

In the travel category, ride-hailing giant Uber topped the most downloaded travel apps, maintaining a massive global footprint. Google Maps, Waze, and inDrive also made the top five. The travel category as a whole witnessed an upward trajectory, with global downloads and time spent growing by 3% and 8% year-over-year, respectively. This growth was primarily driven by emerging markets where travel infrastructure and digital adoption are rapidly expanding, with Airbnb, Rapido, DiDi Rider, and Bolt also featuring in the top ten.

Sports apps also saw increased fan engagement, with Dream11, DAZN, BeSoccer, My11Circle, Flashscore, Sofascore, and ESPN among the most downloaded. Global sports app downloads surged to nearly 1.2 billion, a 1.2% year-over-year increase, surpassing the 2023 peak. However, total IAP revenue in this category dropped to $1.4 billion from $1.6 billion, reflecting challenges in the sports streaming market, partly due to the rise in piracy apps and subsequent crackdowns, such as the shutdown of My Family Cinema.