If you want to know what’s happening in the world, one important metric is what apps people are downloading. Facebook fell by over 25% in 2022. TikTok won and CapCut, which was a previously obscure video editing tool, made it to the top four most downloaded apps around the globe. Not shockingly, it’s made by the parent company of TikTok, and is a favored tool of influencers for creating — you guessed it — TikTok videos.

Apptopia released data today that showed two games ranked among the top 10 in global downloads.

And while Facebook app installs were down, Facebook’s parent company Meta can be happy that WhatsApp, a formerly Eurocentric messaging app, has continued its growth both globally and in the United States. Unfortunately, it’s doing so at the expense of Meta’s own Messenger app.

Here’s the top 10 most-downloaded apps globally:

  1. TikTok 672 Million
  2. Instagram: 548,000,000
  3. WhatsApp: 424 Million
  4. CapCut: 357 millions
  5. Snapchat: More than 330 Million
  6. Telegram: 315 million
  7. Subway Surfers – 304 Million
  8. Facebook: 298 millions
  9. Stumble Guys: 254,000,000
  10. Spotify: 238,000,000

And here’s the top 10 most-downloaded apps for the United States:

  1. TikTok: 99,000,000
  2. Instagram: 72 Million
  3. Cash App: 64 millions
  4. WhatsApp: 63 Million
  5. Snapchat: 54,000,000
  6. Subway Surfers: 51.4 millions
  7. Roblox: 50.9 Million
  8. Amazon.com 47,000,000
  9. Messenger: 46.3 million
  10. Facebook: 45.5 Million

What we’re seeing is evidence of big changes in the mobile ecosystem, and where people are spending time on their mobile devices, says Apptopia’s Adam Blacker.

“Messenger is ceding share,” Blacker says. “WhatsApp grew a good chunk in a big market: the U.S., [going]From 12% to 15% of WhatsApp downloads by 2021, The US also accounted for 13% of Telegram downloads this year as opposed to 9% last year.”

E-commerce has also seen significant change.

SHEIN, with 229,000,000 installs globally, was the most downloaded shopping app. Wish dropped completely, despite being on the top 10 downloads since 2017. SHEIN was second in the U.S. with 40M installs. Amazon, on the other hand, took first place with 47 M app downloads. Pinduoduo was a new Chinese company that made it to the top eight with 16.5m installs. It had been available less than half of a year.

“For the first time ever, SHEIN is the most downloaded Shopping app this year,” Blacker says. “Interesting enough, Temu (owned by Pinduoduo) has made the U.S. list and its value proposition reminds me a lot of Wish. What makes Temu’s arrival so impressive is that it only launched in late August of this year.”

The top 10 most popular shopping apps worldwide:

  1. SHEIN: 229 Million
  2. Meesho: 220 million
  3. Shopee: 323 million
  4. Amazon.com: 195,000,000
  5. Shopsy: 135 million
  6. Flipkart: 112 million
  7. Pinduoduo – 79 Million
  8. Alibaba: 66 Million
  9. Lazada: 64 million
  10. Mercado Libre: 58 million

These are the top 10 most downloaded shopping apps in the United States

  1. Amazon.com 47,000,000
  2. Shein: 40 Million
  3. Walmart: 32 Million
  4. Fetch: 23.2 millions
  5. Shop: 22.9 Mio
  6. Etsy: 17.75 Million
  7. Nike: 17.1 Million
  8. Temu, 16.5 millions
  9. Shop eBay at 16.1 MILLION
  10. OfferUp 15.8 millions

Interestingly, Shop’s largest shareholder is Tobi Lutke, the CEO of Shopify, whose software powers the Shop app. Notable is also the fact that Nike’s app for e-commerce is one of its most popular. Nike is a prominent direct-to-consumer channel.

“Nike has always been a top downloaded Shopping app in the U.S. and easily tops our first ever chart showing direct-to-consumer apps,” Blacker said in a blog post. “Its management team is actively invested in leveraging digital channels to improve customer experience. Recently Lululemon has been following Nike’s lead, enabling it to become the fastest growing D2C app in the United States.”

Google Play and App Store are flooded with games. Surprisingly the top 10 top games reveal that a large number of these top games are very old, which is an unusual finding for mobile apps. Subway Surfers is 10 years old, Candy Crush Saaga 10 years.

Here are the 10 top-rated games in terms of downloads worldwide

  1. Subway Surfers – 304 Million
  2. Stumble Guys: 254,000,000
  3. Roblox: 208 Million
  4. Candy Crush Saga – 138,000,000
  5. Race Master 3D: 128 Million
  6. 8 Ball Pool: 120 millions
  7. FIFA Mobile: 112 million
  8. Merge & Fight: 110 million
  9. Garena Fire Free: 109 Million
  10. Bridge Race: 107 Million

It’s important to note, however, that getting the most installs doesn’t equate to earning the most revenue. Some of the biggest revenue earners like Clash of Clans from Supercell won’t make the top 10 in downloads, but are perennial top earners.

Apptopia’s data comes from installs of iOS App Store and Google Play, but it does not take into account Android installations in China.

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By Adam

Adam is an owner at Nanohydr8. He really loves comedy and satire, and the written word in general.