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Here’s which smartphone apps have the most usage on iOS & Android

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comScore today has shared its monthly report on both smartphone and app marketshare. The data released today reflects the three-month average ending in December of 2015. The report breaks down the top smartphone platforms, manufacturers, and perhaps most interestingly, the most popular apps…

As you can see in the chart below, Facebook remains the most used app on smartphones, reaching 76.8 percent of all smartphone users that are 18 or older. Facebook Messenger comes in second place with 62.5 percent, while apps from Google round out the top 7.

Apple Music, which accounts for anyone that uses the Music app on iOS, even if they don’t use the streaming aspect, achieved 32.2 percent reach during this time. Apple Maps came in slightly lower at 29.1 percent, compared to the 50.9 percent of Google Maps. The extra reach of Google Maps, however, is likely due to the fact that the app is  available on both iOS and Android.

One interesting thing to note, however, is that these reach percentages only account for smartphone users 18 years or older. This restriction likely skews data somewhat. For instance, Snapchat does not make the list of the top 15 most used apps, despite it being one of the most popular and fastest growing apps among teenagers. Likewise, Twitter comes in 15th place in this ranking, but would likely place higher if the data accounted for users under the age 18.

Apple still holds the title as the top smartphone manufacturer this time around, although it did slip slightly. The report shows that Apple holds 42.9 percent of the market, a 0.7 percent change compared to the previous month’s report.

On the Android side, Samsung, LG and Motorola all saw minor increases of 0.8 percent, 0.5 percent, and 0.5 percent, respectively. It’s worth noting that the data released from comScore last month also saw Apple decline by 1 percent, making it back-to-back months of decline for the company. Nevertheless, it still leads overall.

In terms of the top smartphone platforms, Android still holds the lead with 53.3 percent of the market, an increase of 1 percent. Apple’s iOS accounts for 42.9 percent. Again, that’s a 0.7 percent decrease compared to last month.

With arguments of “peak iPhone” floating around, these numbers are somewhat interesting, but in the long run, minor marketshare fluctuations are nothing to worry too much about.

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Comments

  1. Matt Rittman - 8 years ago

    Really surprised Pandora Radio made this list, while Spotify didn’t!

    • standardpull - 8 years ago

      Exactly. Spotify and Snapchat aren’t on the list. Nor is Apple Mail or Safari.

      Then again, they aren’t collecting this data through platform technology. Instead, the data is collected via potentially biased questionnaires and panels, which could result in significant data quality issues. Some survey takers might see “Gmail” or “YouTube” on the list and say “hey, I use that!”, without recognizing that the apps they’re using may be Apple Mail and Safari.

  2. Doug Aalseth - 8 years ago

    My top five would be Safari, Tumblr, Mail, Calendar and whatever game I’m playing at the moment.. I use Twitter fairly often. Occasionally YouTube and Maps. Have a 16GB iPhone so I don’t have any music so don’t use Apple Music. Don’t have any of the rest of the Apps even installed. Sure as H311 don’t have FaceBook anything on my iPhone or iPad.

  3. Top Smartphone Platforms – Let be real.

    How many phones has IOS on them (1). How many phones has Android on them (at 5) Samsung, HTC, LG, Google and Sony, probably others. So to compare Platforms would like to see separate charts for each company and we would probably see that Apple sells more phones than each of these companies with their IOS.

  4. irelandjnr - 8 years ago

    Pandora Radio is at number 8? This list is bullshit.

  5. Arafa Rabbi - 8 years ago

    Yahoo Stock isn’t in my list :D

Author

Avatar for Chance Miller Chance Miller

Chance is an editor for the entire 9to5 network and covers the latest Apple news for 9to5Mac.

Tips, questions, typos to chance@9to5mac.com