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

Ariel Ariel
Mar. 15

This is a single insight from This Week in Apps - A New Trend?. Check out the full article for more insights.


TikTok is in the news again because the US, again, wants to ban it. This isn't the first time but things are looking pretty serious. Do you think it'll actually happen?

I'm sure that would make Instagram, the most downloaded app in the world in February, very happy.

Instagram found 56M new downloads in February from the App Store and Google Play, according to our estimates. Mostly from Google Play, where it was the most downloaded app. Instagram has been the most downloaded app for 3 months now after dethroning TikTok back in December.

TikTok came in second in February with 45M downloads. TikTok's downloads have been on the decline since May of 2023 and are now at the lowest they've been since. 3.5M of those downloads came from the US, according to our estimates, so a ban won't really hurt the video giant.

Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram round out the top 5 most downloaded apps in the world. Telegram hasn't seen a top 5 rank since November of last year.

Threads made the chart again in February, retaining its 8th spot with 22M estimated downloads in February. Rival X has never made the top 10 list but ended February in 23rd place, up from January, so maybe we'll see it here at some point.

There were a few other movements in February, but the charts are generally stable.

According to our App Intelligence, the top 10 most downloaded apps in the world were downloaded 313M times in February. A smidge lower than January's total, but nothing abnormal.

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.

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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.


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