Most Downloaded Apps in 2026 (Global Data & Rankings)

ChatGPT pulled over a billion downloads in 2025. TikTok pulled 740 million. The mobile app charts have never looked like this before and the gap between what dominates globally and what dominates in any given country has never been wider. Below are the most downloaded apps of 2025 and 2026 so far, broken down by platform, country, and category.

Most Downloaded Apps of All Time

These are the most downloaded mobile apps and games of all time, ranked by total lifetime downloads across iOS and Google Play.

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Apps of 2025

These are the most downloaded apps worldwide in 2025, ranked by total global downloads across iOS and Google Play.

Data source: AppMagic, 2025.

Insights

ChatGPT pulled over a billion downloads in 2025. One app. One year. The only other apps that have hit that mark in recent years are TikTok and the Meta family, and ChatGPT did it from a standing start three years ago. AI assistants now hold three slots in the top 25: ChatGPT at one, Gemini at five, DeepSeek brand new at 24. You can stop calling AI a feature. It’s a category.

Most Downloaded Apps of 2026 (So Far)

These are the most downloaded apps worldwide in 2026 so far, covering January through May, ranked by global downloads across iOS and Google Play.

Data source: AppMagic, 2026. 

Insights

Five months in, ChatGPT has already pulled 363M downloads. Project that across the full year and you’re looking at roughly 870M, which would be a drop from its 2025 billion-download peak but still untouchable by anything else on this list. The real story is Gemini jumping to number three. Google pushed Gemini hard into Android defaults late last year, and the download curve is showing the result.

Most Downloaded Apps by Platform

Here’s how the 2025 download leaderboard splits across iOS and Google Play.

Most Downloaded iOS Apps of 2025

Data source: AppMagic, 2025.

Most Downloaded Google Play Apps of 2025

Data source: AppMagic, 2025.

Insights

The two platforms tell completely different stories. Google Play is the volume engine. ChatGPT alone pulled 727M downloads on Android in 2025, roughly double its iOS number, and that pattern holds across almost every app on both lists. Android is where global scale lives, driven by India, Brazil, Indonesia, and other markets where Google Play dominates by default. iOS skews toward higher-income markets and toward apps that benefit from premium audiences. That’s why you see Threads, Google Maps, and the Google search app cracking the iOS top 10 but missing from the Google Play list.

Most Downloaded Apps by Category

Here’s how the 2025 download leaderboard breaks down across the main app store categories — from games and tools to social, finance, and travel.

Most Downloaded Mobile Games

Mobile games are a category of their own, with their own download dynamics — we cover them in depth in our most played and most downloaded mobile games articles.

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Tools Apps

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Entertainment Apps

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Social Apps

This category includes both social media and communication apps.

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Finance Apps

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Lifestyle Apps

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Sports Apps

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Travel Apps

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

The category leaders tell you where the volume actually lives.

Entertainment is dominated by one app: TikTok at 740M downloads pulls more than every other app on the list combined, and it’s still growing. Social is a Meta showcase, with four of the top ten coming from the same parent company. Finance is almost entirely an emerging-markets story: PhonePe, Paytm, Navi, Airtel out of India, plus Indonesian and Chinese wallets — payment apps in mature Western markets don’t move at this scale. Sports is even more concentrated, with cricket and fantasy cricket apps holding seven of the top ten slots.

Most Downloaded Apps by Country

The top app changes dramatically depending on the market — here’s the 2025 download leaderboard for the ten biggest mobile markets in the world.

Top App in Each Major Market

Here’s the #1 downloaded app in each of the ten largest mobile markets in 2025 — a quick comparison view of which app rules where.

Data source: AppMagic, 2026. China data is iOS-only, as Google Play does not operate in mainland China.

Most Downloaded Apps in the United States

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Apps in India

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Apps in China

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Apps in Brazil

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Apps in Indonesia

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Apps in Japan

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Apps in the United Kingdom

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Apps in Germany

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Apps in South Korea

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Apps in Mexico

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Insights

ChatGPT tops five of the ten biggest mobile markets in the world. TikTok wins three. Instagram and Cici take one each. That’s the AI category dominating Western and developed-Asia markets while short-form video still owns the volume markets in LATAM and Southeast Asia.

India is the outlier worth a second look. It’s the only country in the top ten where Instagram is still number one, ahead of ChatGPT, and the rest of its top five is mostly local: Kuku TV, JioHotstar, Meesho. India downloads at scale, but it downloads its own apps.

Same goes for China, where every app in the top ten except DeepSeek is domestic. Anyone running global UA already knows this, but the gap between “global” apps and what people actually install in the world’s two biggest markets keeps widening.

Historical Data

Most Downloaded Apps by Year

Here’s a year-by-year look at the most downloaded apps from 2018 to 2024, showing how the leaderboard has shifted over the past seven years.

Most Downloaded Apps of 2024

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Apps of 2023

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Apps of 2022

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Apps of 2021

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Apps of 2020

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Apps of 2019

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

Most Downloaded Apps of 2018

Data source: AppMagic, 2026.

References

• AppMagic, 2026. Top mobile apps

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