App Downloads Grow 10% in May - The Most Downloaded Apps

Happy June, which means, it's time to crunch the numbers and rank the most downloaded mobile apps in the world. The whole world!

While the list remains fairly similar to April's, there are a few interesting moves, so let's dive right in:

Instagram was the most downloaded app in the world in May, adding 49M new users from the App Store and Google Play, according to our App Intelligence. Downloads grew 12% month over month giving Instagram it's second highest month of downloads this year, and the third month in first place.

Right below it is rival TikTok, which has been on the losing end of the rivalry with Instagram since March after leading for many many many months. It ended May with 43M downloads, which is a whopping 19% increase from April. Increase and all, it's still behind Instagram and that's because it's still not available in India.

It is beating Instagram on the App Store, but that difference is very small in comparison and isn't enough to get ahead in the combined chart.

In general, May has been higher across the board and every app on our combined list saw an increase except for Meta's Messenger which stayed the same. Probably why Meta is working on a Twitter clone...

Facebook, WhatsApp, and CapCut round out the top 5 for May. If you're thinking this is the exact same top 5 from April you're correct. One pair flipped (Facebook and TikTok), but the rest are the same.

I've talked about CapCut, TikTok's video editor, last week as it's now very clear its presence is dominating the category. With 29M estimated downloads in May, up a couple millions from April, I don't see this trend slowing down.

Our App Intelligence is showing that together, the most downloaded apps in the world in May, made their way into 298M iOS and Android devices. That's a decent 10% jump when compared to April's total, and with summer starting, June's total can be even higher.