The French Photo-Sharing App That's Taking Over the App Store

Ariel Ariel
4/22/22

This is a single insight from This Week in Apps #110 - That's a Lot of Lost Downloads. Check out the full article for more insights.


Ready for something new? BeReal is a photo-sharing app with a unique spin – it asks you to snap a photo of yourself at a random time and gives you two minutes to do it. That's it. That's the whole thing.

Who would do that, right??

Well, up until recently, not that many. Recently, many!

The two-year-old app, which hails from France, has been picking up steam in the last month and has hit a new peak this week.

Daily downloads, which our estimated show averaged around 4,000 for most of 2021, have been growing steadily in 2022. In January, daily downloads more than quadrupled to 20,000, and by March, downloads doubled to around 40,000, according to our estimates.

But that's not the end! Last Sunday, downloads climbed to 170,000. That's right, more than 400% increase, all in a single day. And it doesn't look like that's slowing down.

BeReal is now the 11th most downloaded app in the US App Store.

Like many of the apps du jour we've seen topping the App Store recently, most of BeReal's downloads came in recently. Of the 6.7 million downloads the app has seen since it launched in 2020, 4.9 million of downloads, or roughly 73%, came in 2022. Most of which are from the US and the UK.

College students are the app's main audience, where the app has been spreading organically, but there's more here. Photo apps have been rising to the top of the charts a bunch over the last few months. Some knowingly, others by luck, but at the end of the day, there's an obvious pattern here.

Remember the excitement in the early days of Snapchat? That could be coming back, without the filters and gimmicks.

App Intelligence for Everyone!

The insights in this report come right out of our App Intelligence platform, which offers access to download and revenue estimates, installed SDKs, and more! Learn more about the tools or schedule a demo with our team to get started.

Are you a Journalist? You can get access to our app and market intelligence for free through the Appfigures for Journalists program. Contact us for more details.

All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.

Tagged: #social-media

Related Resources

Apple's Sherlocking Again - Can These Apps Survive?
Insights
Apple's Sherlocking Again - Can These Apps Survive?

Apple released a dedicated app for sports scores in February and I've been watching it closely because it sherlocks a sm...

Is a Ban Coming? The Most Downloaded Apps in the World
Insights
Is a Ban Coming? The Most Downloaded Apps in the World

TikTok is in the news again because the US, again, wants to ban it. This isn't the first time but things are looking pre...