The top 500 apps globally averaged a record 91.7 million monthly active users in Q2 2021, up 8.4 per cent year-over-year, according to a report by Sensor Tower.
Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, certain aspects of the global mobile app market have normalised, such as first-time app installs, which grew 1.7 percent YoY in H1 2021, trailing the 25.7 percent YoY growth seen in H1 2020.
However, consumer spending growth has remained elevated along with consumer engagement with the world’s top apps, as per Sensor Tower’s latest report, State of App Engagement 2021,
Since Q1 2018, the top 500 apps worldwide have grown their active user base each quarter and that accelerated last year during the onset of the pandemic.
In Q2 2020, the top apps had averaged 84.6 million monthly active users, up 18 percent YoY. Though not significantly high, the trend was still upward in Q2 2021, climbing 8.4 percent to 91.7 million.
Business apps
Business apps gained significant traction. The average monthly active users (MAU) of the top 100 business apps climbed in 2020 with persistent growth into the first half of 2021, making it the fastest growing category by active users.
Compared to Q1 2018, the average MAU has seen a compound annual growth rate of nearly 42 per cent.
Category apps
When it came to the category level, Entertainment apps accounted for the highest time spent by consumers on apps in Q2 2021. As per the report, users spent an average of approximately 29 minutes per day in each app among the top 100 iOS apps in the category during the study period.
It was followed by Social Networking apps where users spent an average of nearly 24 minutes per day in each of the top 100.
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“Compared to Entertainment apps, that time was spread out over more sessions of shorter durations, as users performed quick check-ins on their social channels,” Sensor Tower said in a blog post.
In terms of gaming, though the Hypercasual genre topped the list with the most monthly and weekly active users on average, mobile Shooter genre games saw more players on a daily basis.
Owing to the success of battle royale titles such as PUBG Mobile including its variant Game For Peace on iOS in China and Garena Free Fire, the top 50 games in the Shooter genre averaged 7.6 million daily active users in Q2 2021. The genre also recorded the third most WAU and the fourth most MAU.