Mobile apps in the United Kingdom (UK) - statistics & facts
Mobile app consumers in the United Kingdom want to keep themselves engaged, social, and entertained. The most common activities for mobile consumers in the country were exchanging text messages, followed by taking photos and browsing the internet.
Apps have acquired a special spot for smartphone users, making all their preferred activities available at their fingertips. In 2023, the hours spent using mobile applications among users in the UK decreased for the first time since 2019, going from four hours daily to three hours and fifty minutes.
Chinese-developed apps Shein, Temu, and TikTok kept seeing their audience increase between the end of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024. Shopping app Temu amassed over 10 million downloads in the UK during 2023, ranking as the most downloaded mobile app on the Google Play Store in the market. TikTok followed, with 4.6 million downloads, while the Tesco app ranked third. By comparison, cloud storage Google One was the highest-grossing app in the Google Play Store – generating more than 22 million U.S. dollars in revenues from UK users 2023.
Mobile app use trends have been normalizing in 2023 and 2024, after experiencing an unexpected growth during the years of the COVID-19 pandemic. User engagement has been strong in several app categories – including social media, shopping, and gaming. Meanwhile, app consumers have made the mobile UK market one of the most lucrative in the European region, with the mobile gaming category generating 1.5 billion pounds in the last recorded year.
Apps have acquired a special spot for smartphone users, making all their preferred activities available at their fingertips. In 2023, the hours spent using mobile applications among users in the UK decreased for the first time since 2019, going from four hours daily to three hours and fifty minutes.
Which apps are the most popular in the UK?
In the UK mobile market, e-mail services, social media, and messaging apps were the most widely used app categories after internet browsers. Weather apps followed, with the most popular titles gathering millions of users thanks to a mix of functionalities and features. In 2023, the Met Office Weather Forecast app generated over 1.23 million downloads, while the BBC Weather app had almost one million downloads in the examined period.Chinese-developed apps Shein, Temu, and TikTok kept seeing their audience increase between the end of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024. Shopping app Temu amassed over 10 million downloads in the UK during 2023, ranking as the most downloaded mobile app on the Google Play Store in the market. TikTok followed, with 4.6 million downloads, while the Tesco app ranked third. By comparison, cloud storage Google One was the highest-grossing app in the Google Play Store – generating more than 22 million U.S. dollars in revenues from UK users 2023.
Consumer favorites: gaming
UK app users were highly engaged with several mobile categories, including less functional and purely entertaining mobile gaming. Approximately 40 percent of UK gamers reported playing between one and five hours weekly, while over 20 percent of respondents reported playing between six and 10 hours per week. As mobile phones and smartphones were the most used devices to play video games, the UK mobile gaming market has been developing rapidly. In 2023, mobile gaming registered spending of over 1.52 billion pounds, which represents an increase of over six percent compared to the previous year.Mobile app use trends have been normalizing in 2023 and 2024, after experiencing an unexpected growth during the years of the COVID-19 pandemic. User engagement has been strong in several app categories – including social media, shopping, and gaming. Meanwhile, app consumers have made the mobile UK market one of the most lucrative in the European region, with the mobile gaming category generating 1.5 billion pounds in the last recorded year.
