The Most Downloaded App in 2021

2021 was an intriguing year in mobile and propelled what I think will be a very important trend in 2022.

Let's have a look at the numbers and then talk about what they mean.

According to our App Intelligence, TikTok was the most downloaded app in 2021, with more than 586 million new downloads globally. It fought a strong battle with Instagram, which ended 2021 in the #2 spot with 566 million downloads.

The rivalry between these two tells the story of the year, in my opinion. Creators. More on that in a second.

Facebook and WhatsApp rounded out the Meta trio in spots 3 and 4. Facebook's Meta's control of mobile is still very strong.

As we dip lower, we have Telegram, which has a magnificent year, adding 365 million new users. It had help from WhatsApp early on but has maintained demand all on its own month after month.

Snapchat, Messenger, Zoom, CapCut, and Google Meet finish the top 10 list, which looks very similar to last month's list of most downloaded apps...

Do you see the pattern here?

Five of the top 10 apps have something to do with creators. And in the case of CapCut, TikTok's video editing app, it's just about creators.

YouTube, the original home for creators, isn't on this list only because it comes built-in on Android devices, so we can't estimate new downloads. If we did, I'm sure it'd be sitting up high with TikTok and Instagram. We can see that pretty clearly on the App Store, where we can estimate its downloads.

I've covered creators and the revenue they earn a bunch of times this year in the newsletter and fully expect this to become the hottest trend of the new year.

TikTok and Twitch already have ways for creators to monetize, YouTube's shorts pays creators, and Twitter's Super Follows are taking off.

Are app developers considered content creators? I wasn't sure myself, so I asked Twitter, and the results were split down the middle. What do you think?