The most downloaded apps
in the world: 2025 data

ChatGPT was the most downloaded app worldwide in 2025, according to AppTweak's estimates across the App Store and Google Play for January to December 2025¹.

Table: The 10 most downloaded apps worldwide in 2025, App Store and Google Play combined (AppTweak Market Intelligence)

ChatGPT downloads in 2025

845.3M

ChatGPT's growth on 2024

+156.8%

Top apps with fewer downloads than in 2024

7 of 10

App installs in India, the largest market

19.1B

AI took the top spot. ChatGPT more than doubled its downloads. Using AppTweak's growth rate, its 2025 total implies about 329 million downloads in 2024, so it added roughly 516 million installs in a year, the largest increase of any app in the top 10¹. In Apple's own US list of the most downloaded free iPhone apps of 2025, ChatGPT was first and Google Gemini tenth, the only other chatbot⁴.

The social giants are saturating. Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and CapCut all fell by 18% or more. That doesn't mean they are losing users: it means most people who want them already have them, so new downloads come mainly from new phones and reinstalls.

Lighter versions are growing. TikTok Lite, a smaller app for cheaper phones and slower connections, grew 77.2%, a sign that much download growth now comes from price-sensitive markets.

India is the world's largest app download market. AppTweak estimated about 19.1 billion installs in India from November 2024 to November 2025, 17% of the global total, followed by the United States, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico².

The top 10 countries by app downloads

1India19.1B downloads · 17.0% of world2United States12.6B · 11.2%3Brazil9.0B · 8.1%4Indonesia6.1B · 5.5%5Mexico4.5B · 4.0%6China4.2B · 3.7% (App Store only)7Turkey3.1B · 2.8%8Philippines3.0B · 2.7%9Germany2.6B · 2.3%10United Kingdom2.6B · 2.3%

Downloads per person: our analysis

Total downloads favour big populations, so we divided each country's downloads by its approximate 2025 population from the UN's World Population Prospects 2024⁶. The result reverses the ranking.

Table: App downloads per person in the top 10 download markets, Nov 2024–Nov 2025 (downloads from AppTweak; populations from UN WPP 2024; calculation by Science of Apps)

Two cautions. China's figure counts only Apple's App Store, because Google Play is not available there and Chinese Android stores are not covered, so it greatly understates real activity. And downloads per person count every install, including reinstalls on new or reset phones; they measure activity, not unique users.

India's download volume is enormous and its growth is changing shape. Sensor Tower, which estimates differently from AppTweak, put India's 2025 downloads at 25.5 billion, a rebound from a dip the year before, driven by AI assistants and short "micro-drama" video apps³⁵. It found Instagram was India's most downloaded app overall, with ChatGPT just behind, and ChatGPT the leading generative AI app, followed by Google Gemini and Perplexity³.

For Indian app makers, the per-person gap is the opportunity and the challenge: hundreds of millions of people are online with relatively few apps installed, often on phones with limited storage, so lightweight apps and clear reasons to install matter more than in richer markets.

Apple and Google do not publish download counts for other companies' apps, so every figure here is an estimate. Trackers such as AppTweak, Sensor Tower and Appfigures model downloads from store rankings, data panels and partner data, over different periods, and sometimes different store coverage¹³. They usually agree on who leads; the exact numbers can differ by tens of millions. Compare figures within one source, not across sources.

• Downloads are not users — a download becomes value only if people return; track day-7 and day-30 retention, not installs.
• Category timing matters — AI assistants grew fastest in 2025; saturated categories need a sharp reason to switch.
• Build light for India — small app size, offline tolerance and low data use widen your reach.
• Use store data for direction — trackers are good for spotting trends and competitors, not for exact forecasts.

Our app retention benchmarks show how quickly most installs fade, and the retention and churn audit finds where your own users drop off.

What we used. App rankings and downloads for January–December 2025 come from AppTweak's global report, which combines estimated downloads from the App Store and Google Play for the top 500 apps. Country totals come from AppTweak's country report for November 2024 to November 2025. We cross-checked leaders against Sensor Tower's India data and Apple's US list.

What we calculated. Implied 2024 downloads equal 2025 downloads divided by (1 + growth rate). Downloads per person equal each country's downloads divided by its approximate 2025 population from the UN's World Population Prospects 2024, rounded to whole numbers.

Limits. All download figures are third-party estimates; periods differ slightly between the app and country reports; Chinese Android stores and other third-party stores are not included; downloads include reinstalls. Data collected in October 2026.