Trending apps right now - What is driving their success?

Apps are truly a part of our lives now, with the average person using 10 a day (or 88% of their screen time with apps)! Must-have apps have come to feature in every part of our digital lives, from the initial simple fun of playing games in our spare time, to being big forces in dating, health and finance. The app craze means there’s an app for everything.

Some of the apps everyone is using are synonymous with the tech giants dominating the markets and continually feature in the download charts. These include the likes to Instagram, X, TikTok, YouTube and so forth. These apps may not be bringing out drastically new features with each update per se, but they serve as a constant – or at least firm fixture – in our day-to-day digital lives.

This is evident in the most downloaded apps of 2024. Last year, according to data from both Apple and Android, here were the most popular apps:

1. TikTok – 825 million
2. Instagram – 817 million
3. Facebook – 597 million
4. WhatsApp Messenger – 564 million
5. Temu – 516 million
6. Telegram – 447 million
7. CapCut – 410 million
8. Snapchat – 330 million
9. Threads – 326 million
10. WhatsApp Business – 294 million

With people spending hours on their devices, those few square inches of screen have become incredibly valuable real estate. In the US alone, mobile advertising is expected to reach $228.11bn in 2025 alone which represents 66.4% of all digital advertising expenditure for the year.

Apps are huge business, so are the top app popularity drivers in 2025?

Time for AI

One of the most popular apps in 2025 has been ChatGPT, which has sustained market interest since it burst onto the scene in 2024. Putting AI into people’s hands means unique functionality that has transformed attitudes towards the technology.

Much have been written about AI, but within an app context this shows that this could be a potential game change for developers. Predictive analytics, incrementality testing, real-time campaign optimisation, and advanced cohort analysis could support app user engagement strategies, by reducing app churn and help keep users engaged.

ATT and privacy

The security of apps and how they use our data has long been a hot topic, and this isn’t going away with new data privacy regulations continually entering the market. Despite this, people are still willing to transmit personal data via their apps and this was evident with the GOV.UK ID Check and HMRC apps being among the top free downloaded apps for 2025 so far.

Privacy features of apps are coming into greater focus with App Tracking Transparency (ATT) opt-in rates for iOS users higher across the board in 2025 than they were in 2024, showing people are still eager to share personal data in exchange for a better digital experience. Gaming was the most popular app sector for higher ATT opt-in rates, with e-commerce now second. Which brings us to…

Multi-channel app systems

While many businesses have become giant through singular apps, it is clear that in 2025 apps that play a part in and support seamless, multi-channel user experiences will be key. This means the onus is on developers to launch apps that work in tandem with other digital tools in a complementary fashion – helping harmonise user experiences (UX) and keep audiences. Understanding user behaviour and fostering user loyalty are a huge part of this.

This has become particularly crucial within the world of streaming where streaming giants are constantly competing with one another and want to ensure that – no matter how someone watches their content – their numerous apps support this fluidly.

The future of fintech apps

Apps have played an incredibly powerful role in the explosion of fintech, as an industry, allowing financial services to play a more active, efficient and integrated role in our daily loves. According to Sensor Tower, these are still managing to attract new users with 7.7 billion downloads in 2024 from 4.6 billion in 2020.

Users are now spoilt for choice when it comes to fintech apps, and there are numerous ones to choose across investment, money management, lending, borrowing, trading, payments etc. Looking solely at download data, the most popular apps right now appear to be around cryptocurrency and digital payments. At the same time there have been declines in other fintech app categories such as lending and consumer banking.

This reflects how people’s interests in fintech are changing. The popularity of cryptocurrency apps is aligned with the fact, as asset classes, cryptocurrencies are becoming more legitimate and benefitting from greater regulatory oversight. As a result this means more people are willing to take the plunge and start trading with cryptocurrencies, and their smartphones’ app stores are usually the first port of call. Meanwhile, the growing popularity of payment apps is fitting given how increasingly seamless online experiences are becoming.

As consumers we expect effortless, secure and instant results when we pay for things and payment apps play a large part in this. We’ve written excessively about the ongoing innovation that is continually happening in payments, so it makes sense that payment apps will continue to dominate. We can’t wait to see, first hand, what innovations this will involve in 2025 and the role that Cardaq will play in it!

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