Mobile app downloads surge during coronavirus lockdown

By

Mask download
Stuck home? There's an App Store for that.
Photo: Engin Akyurt/Unsplash

Few areas are booming right now like mobile apps, which have experienced massive growth during coronavirus lockdown. According to a new report from app analytics platform Sensor Tower, data used by mobile app downloads has surged during lockdown.

In a post published Wednesday, the firm said data usage for first-time installs of the top 250 mobile apps worldwide was up 34% from the same quarter last year. Based on an average of the last three years, it is up a whopping 52% — hitting an unfathomable 391 petabytes in Q1 2020. (A petabyte equals roughly 1,000 terabytes.)

Sensor Tower notes that new installs of apps in both the App Store and Google Play store achieved a crazy 33.6 billion installs in the first three months of 2020. This is, unsurprisingly, also up from previous years by 20.3% year-on-year. The report doesn’t break down the split between iOS and Android, but it’s almost certain that both are experiencing a nice boost right now.

According to the report:

“To put this data consumption into perspective, last quarter’s total of 596 petabytes used by first-time installations of the top 250 apps was equivalent nearly 53 million hours of 4K quality Netflix streaming or enough to completely fill the storage on approximately 9.3 million top-of-the-line iPhones. Note that this total does not include app downloads from third-party Android stores in China or elsewhere, nor does it factor in re-installs, updates, or installations of apps to more than one device associated with the same Apple ID or Google account.”

Apps are flourishing during lockdown

The idea that app stores would reap the benefits of the economy-bothering coronavirus is nothing new. In early February, long before lockdown kicked in for many, analysts were already suggesting coronavirus could be good for app downloads.

“We believe the App Store could possibly experience a tailwind from the actions taken to limit the spread of coronavirus,” wrote Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty. Huberty based her take on the idea that many more customers (at the time, in China) would be seeking alternative means of entertainment while stuck home.

The surge in popularity of social tools like Zoom and TikTok (which just had the best quarter of any app ever) add more data points to support this.

How have your own app habits changed during lockdown? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.