Mobile applications have taken over almost every sphere of our lives. From managing finances to prioritizing well-being, consumers heavily rely on mobile technology as a convenient means of getting services on the go.
The steady growth in global app spending underscores the increasing dominance of mobile apps. In 2023, mobile users spent $257 billion on apps. The year 2024 has started on a strong note, too, with quarterly consumer spending reaching an unprecedented $35 billion, an increase of 9.5% year-over-year. Daily usage is also on the rise, with users spending 5 hours with smartphones in tow.
However, while some applications struggle to gain traction, other apps strike it rich with the consumer. Today, we'll go over the top trending apps whose features and market positioning have captured the hearts of app users.
Top 33 trending apps in 2024
This year, entertainment, social, and video and photo editing apps are topping revenue charts across app categories, while productivity applications surge thanks to a download boost fuelled by generative AI. But there’s one category no one expected to see in the list — bite-sized drama apps. Tapping into insights from leading app analytics firms like SensorTower and Data.ai, we've curated a list of the 30 hottest apps making waves in the mobile market.
Adobe Express
Adobe Express is a popular AI content creation hub with an ecosystem of design, photo, and video tools in a user-friendly package. Adobe Express, as we know it today, has implemented a variety of AI-enabled features, including background removal, image enhancement, and text-to-image capabilities to streamline the design process.
The application operates on the subscription-based model, offering access to additional design elements, increased storage, and tools. In 2022, Adobe Express was a go-to tool among 43 million students and teachers globally as a top creativity tool for education. At the beginning of 2024, the application ended up being the sixth among the top breakout apps based on download growth.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video is a popular streaming service with a huge library of movies, TV shows, and original content. As part of the Amazon Prime membership, Amazon Prime Video introduces subscribers to all the benefits of Amazon Prime, including free Two-Day Delivery on eligible items and access to hit movies and shows, award-winning Amazon MGM Originals, and live sports like Thursday Night Football.
Today, the premium video service has more than 200 million monthly viewers. The offering also ranks ninth among the breakout video streaming platforms based on consumer spend growth.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Amazon Shopping
The Amazon Shopping app is a mobile application from the leading e-commerce retailer in the US that allows shoppers to browse and purchase millions of products offered by Amazon. With its convenient navigation and ample functionality, Amazon Shopping offers a smooth shopping experience on par with its website counterpart.
In 2023, Amazon was the most popular e-commerce retailer in the US and UK, with 200 million people paying every month for faster shipping and other premium services.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
CapCut
This Chinese feature-packed video editor app gives users access to advanced editing features, fonts, effects, and everything they need to capture the moment. Formerly known as Viamaker, CapCut shares the same parent company as TikTok; hence, TikTok users can both edit and export their CapCut videos directly to TikTok.
In 2023, CapCut reached a significant milestone of $100 million in consumer spend across iOS and Google Play, cementing its position as the leading video editing application. Today, the application boasts a user base of over 490 million, which is nearly a quarter the size of its sibling app, TikTok.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
ChatGPT
Our breakdown of top apps would not be complete without ChatGPT, a disruptive supernova that has forever changed the way humans interact with computers. Launched in 2022, this app has become a sensation in the app market with its ability to engage in human-like conversations and draw from context.
In 2023, ChatGPT set a record for the fastest-growing user base, reaching a milestone of 100 million monthly active users just two months after launch. The same year, the application raked in $2 billion. In 2024, the debut of a brand-new GPT-4o ‘omni’ model has driven the company’s biggest-ever spike in revenue on mobile, with a net revenue of $900,000 on the launch day.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Disney+ Hotstar
Disney+ Hotstar is an Indian subscription video-on-demand over-the-top streaming service that offers a blend of Indian and global video content. The app offers a vast library of Indian and international movies, TV shows, and documentaries, along with live sports, exclusive Indian shows, and live news channels.
Similar to Netflix and Amazon Prime, Disney+ Hotstar employs a three-tier subscription-based monetization model. In March 2024, the service had 35.5 million paid subscribers, compared with 38.3 million in 2023. Despite this slight decline, Disney+ Hotstar remains among the leading breakout apps in the video streaming category.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
DramaBox
Short-form dramas have made it to the list of trending apps in 2024, with DramaBox being among the leaders. The DramaBox app offers a huge selection of high-quality content that ranges from indie films to hit TV series.
In the first quarter of 2024, DramaBox generated $35 million in revenue, which is 24% of the revenue generated by the top 10 short-drama apps. The number of app downloads reached 7 million downloads.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Facebook has cemented its place in history as one of the largest social media and social networking services used by billions of people around the world. Throughout its history, the app has faced competition from various platforms but has retained its title as the most popular social media app, with more than 3 billion monthly active users.
Each year, Facebook adds new features to keep up with evolving user needs. In 2024, the app took on TikTok with a new, vertical-first video player and also added a few new twists to poking, which is one of Facebook’s oldest features. However, according to data.ai, Facebook hasn't managed to parlay its user base into dominance in downloads or consumer spending, trailing behind competitors like TikTok and Instagram.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Google One
As our data needs grow, cloud storage apps like Google One help us take care of our files and documentation. Google One backs up important phone data using free 15 GB of storage offered with every Google account. This service was launched in 2018 as an alternative to a Google Drive subscription.
Google One users can get 24/7 assistance and share their storage allotment with up to five family members. The storage covers Google services, including Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos.
In 2023, the Google One app became one of the four apps with the largest quarterly consumer spend over time, summoning around $0.4 billion. Though most customers are buying the subscription for the extra storage and backup — Google’s alternative to Apple’s iCloud, in a sense — it’s also another way for Google to lock in customers into its app ecosystem, even if they don’t use its Pixel phones or even an Android device.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Hallow
Hallow is a meditation and prayer app endorsed by celebrities like Mark Wahlberg and Jonathan Roumie. With its guided meditations and audio-guided Bible stories, the application attracts millions of users interested in mindfulness and faith-based practices.
In 2023, Hallow earned its stripes as the world's most popular prayer companion app, totaling 10 million downloads and onboarding 225 million users. In 2024, after a surge in downloads following its Super Bowl ad, the app became the first faith-based app ever to reach the App Store's top 1, beating top players like Netflix, Spotify, Instagram, Amazon, TikTok, and YouTube.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
This Meta-owned photo and video-sharing app has come a long way since 2010. Once a 1:1 photo posting app, Instagram is now among the most popular social media apps with a rich feature set of social, business, and creator tools.
The app’s toolset is impressive and includes such trendsetting features as “Reels,” “Stories,” and “Highlights”. The app never stops growing, rolling out new features to match evolving user needs and make content more interactive. Lately, Instagram added a few new flares, including Instagram badges, 60-second stories, and interactive stickers.
In 2023, Instagram was downloaded 767 million times worldwide, a 20% increase from the previous year — which makes it one of the most downloaded apps out there. With nearly 2 billion monthly active users and 16 minutes of daily time spent on the app, this social media giant remains a heavyweight in 2024.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Max
Next up on our list of the most popular apps is Max, formerly known as HBO Max. The revamped version of the premium streaming services brings over 35,000 hours of content to mobile devices, twice the amount that HBO Max offered. The app's unique selling point stayed the same: users can access a huge array of content that combines classic HBO shows with a trove of popular Warner Bros movies, Max Originals, HGTV, Discovery Channel, and more.
The mix of core features is similar to other competing streaming services, including:
- On-demand movies;
- Paid HD streaming;
- Advanced sorting by type, genre, and others;
- Offline downloads, playback;
- Accessibility and parental control.
The new app version was supplemented with more personalization options like profile avatars, a more straightforward home page and navigation menu, and better app stability in general. The rebranding cost the app 1.8 million subscribers in 2023, but the app rebounded from this outflow in the first half of 2024, eyeing 103.3 million users for its paid subscription.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Netflix
A pioneer of video streaming, the Netflix app delivers a wide variety of top-selling TV shows, movies, and others directly into viewers’ smartphones. The app offers a whole range of the latest streaming features, including 3D surround sound format, HD quality, offline watching, and others. Netflix is an advocate of an AI-enabled experience and widely employs intelligence to personalize recommendations, create teasers, and offer playback and other features.
The resounding success of the app is an accumulation of various factors, including the binge-watching trend Netflix started, unmatched personalization, and partnerships with top content creators and distributors. Today, Netflix has 277 million paid memberships in over 190 countries with $9.56 million of quarterly revenue.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
NFL
Sticking with video streaming apps, NFL is a premium streaming service from the National Football League. This exclusive application lets football fans catch LIVE local and primetime games, NFL RedZone, NFL Network, game replays, and more — all in one place.
Here’s a breakdown of the key functionality that varies based on the subscription tier:
- Access to live content (live games, NFL RedZone, live radio broadcasts)
- News and analytics
- Ad-free game highlights
- NFL library programming on-demand ad-free, and more.
According to data.ai, the NFL app became one of the top video streaming apps in 2023, achieving the highest consumer spend.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
PictureThis
When talking about trending apps, one doesn’t expect to see a gardening app among them. But PictureThis has challenged the status quo. This plant identification app leverages image recognition to identify plants, flowers, herbs, shrubs, trees, and more. Users can snap a photo of a plant they don't know, and the app can identify the plant with 98% accuracy.
PictureThis also has an AI-enabled diagnosis feature, water tracker, light exposure monitoring and a variety of other useful features. According to SensorTower, the app climbed to over $8 million of estimated monthly revenue and became the sixth among the top breakout AI apps based on consumer spend growth.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
ReelShort
ReelShort is another frontrunner among short-drama entertainment apps that joined the ranks of the most trending apps this year. Via this streaming platform, users can binge-watch vertical TV shows and minute-long episodes while commuting or during spare moments throughout their day.
This Chinese-based application is unusually simple, focusing on bite-sized soap operas, comedies, and thrillers with minimal character development and cheezy plots. ReelShort uses a virtual currency system that allows users to unlock episodes with in-app coins.
The application became a huge success in the global market — it even dethroned TikTok from the top spot in the entertainment category of the Apple App Store multiple times. ReelShort has remained in the top 10 since, surpassing 30 million downloads globally, including 40% coming from the US market.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Remini
Remini, an AI-enhanced photo and video editor, is one of the applications that have capitalized on the AI craze, allowing users to transform their visual content from low-resolution and grainy to high-quality and wow images.
But it isn’t the app’s photo editing capabilities that skyrocketed its popularity. In 2023, Remini went viral in the US and other Western markets thanks to its realistic family portraits with virtual children. After some time, Remini replicated this success by adding a gen AI-based feature that allows users to generate professional headshots for sites like LinkedIn just by uploading 12 selfies.
As a result, the demand for Remini has shot through the roof, making it the second most-used generative AI product in the world over 90 million monthly active users.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
SHEIN
SHEIN, an eCommerce application, is an on-the-go version of a Chinese online fast-fashion retailer. The application has every feature reputable online shopping apps have, including advanced catalog search, payment gateway, shopping cart, online live events, and others. Since SHEIN controls the entire production chain, the application can churn out hundreds of new items at a daily rate.
To win over shoppers, SHEIN combines influencer programs and social media advertising. Also, the Chinese brand relies on artificial intelligence as its central insight engine to identify trends and predict consumer demand.
Shein was downloaded 238 million times in 2023, making it the most downloaded fashion app of that year.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Snapchat
Snapchat is among the most popular social media apps in the category, with 422 million daily active users in Q1 2024. This trending app was launched in 2011 as a mobile messaging application for sharing photos, videos, text, and drawings.
Users can also add filters, draw their own images, and use geofilters and other nifty features. One of the differentiating app features is the ability to video-chat, like Skype. Other fundamental features of Snapchat include:
- “Self-destructing” messages with varying time settings;
- “Snapchat Lenses” for adding fun real-time special effects and sounds;
- “Snapchat Memories” for uploading saved “Snaps” from the device;
- “Snapchat Discover” and “Live Stories;”
- AR-based Snapchat games.
Snapchat is the 10th most popular social media platform but the 5th most popular social messaging app. While it’s not the most-used app in the world, it’s got a loyal fan base—more than half of Snappchatters engage with the app each day.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Spotify
Another trending app, Spotify, is a music and podcast streaming giant with smart algorithms for granular recommendations. Along with easy music discovery, playlist curation, and friend's playlist following, users can also download playlists, listen to video podcasts, participate in Q&As and polls, share playlists, and voice-control their in-app experience.
The service keeps experimenting with new features, including AI playlist generation, high-fidelity audio, and time machine features. Spotify wrapped up Q2 2024 with 626 million monthly active users and a record-high total operating income of €266 million.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Temu
Operated by the Chinese e-commerce company, Temu is a low-price online marketplace specializing in selling heavily discounted products, from air fryers to clothing. Instead of relying on intermediate distributors, this app allows China-based vendors to sell and ship directly to customers to make items more wallet-saving.
According to Statista, the app was downloaded almost 58 million times in July 2024, outperforming even Amazon’s marketplace app.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Threads
Threads is a new text-based social sharing app built by the Instagram team. With familiar elements like news feeds, heart-shaped likes, and reposts, Threads hopes to become a vibrant hub for community discussions on a wide range of topics.
In its first four hours, the application amassed 30 million users and 5 million sign-ups, which makes it the most rapidly downloaded app of all time. In July 2024, Meta’s Threads had over 175 million monthly active users. Analysts at Evercore ISI expect the app to contribute $8 billion to Meta’s bottom line by 2025.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
TikTok
TikTok is the app with potentially the most significant short-form video presence worldwide. Made in 2016, TikTok absorbed another video-sharing karaoke app, Musical.ly, which added to TikTok's following. The app has become widely known for all the trends and challenges that make up some of the platform's most popular videos.
Thanks to TikTok’s license agreement with labels and artists, users can integrate popular royalty-free tracks into their videos. TikTok is also famous for its unique algorithm that casts a wide net to determine which videos to show users. Other differentiating features of TikTok include:
- A wide range of creator tools, including filters and effects;
- Reactions and duets for reacting to and building on existing videos;
- Video live streaming where streamers can earn virtual gifts;
- QR code scanners to find other accounts;
- Geolocation for finding other users in proximity.
Along with redefining our definition of entertainment apps, TikTok also offers an e-commerce feature, TikTok Shop, allowing the TikTok community to purchase directly through a complete in-app experience. At the beginning of 2024, TikTok broke the record for global consumer spend in a quarter, garnering over $1.3 billion, which also made it the second app ever to surpass $14 billion in all-time spend. TikTok also regained the #1 spot in the top global downloads chart.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Tinder
Tinder is a dating hub that is best known for pioneering and popularizing the iconic “Swipes” feature. This dating app offers a diverse selection of other tools and features, including live chatting, Matches, Super likes, Quizzes, and other perks. In 2024, Tinder also launched its new protective feature, which allows users to share their dating plans with family and friends for safety purposes.
According to its parent company, Tinder's popularity remains resilient well into 2024, with Tinder collecting $480 million of direct quarterly revenue. The number of Tinder Payers declined 8% year-over-year to 9.6 million, although the subscription revenue was solid. Tinder's consistently strong financial performance secured its position as the fifth top-grossing mobile app in 2024.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Tonkeeper
Tonkeeper is a self-custody wallet for paying with Ton coin and other tokens on a new blockchain with an unrivaled transaction speed. The application received high marks from users thanks to its asset management features and seamless integration with the TON ecosystem, making it a favored destination among cryptocurrency enthusiasts and investors.
The application also has a dedicated security tool, the Signer application, that is designed to protect users’ crypto assets. Although being a relatively new kid on the block, Tonkeeper quickly gained traction and became the fourth among the top breakout apps based on download growth.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Uber
A ride-hailing giant, Uber is an app that allows users to request a car from Uber's fleet of drivers. The app will then connect the rider with the nearest driver and give them an estimated time of arrival. The fare is automatically calculated and charged to the user’s credit card on file.
As a true trendsetter in the category, Uber offers a great number of trailblazing features, including split fares, scheduled rides, multiple drop-offs, and others. At the core of the app is DeepETA, Uber's sophisticated algorithm for estimating arrival times using deep learning.
According to the company, gross bookings during the second quarter of 2024 increased by 19% year-over-year to $40 billion.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
WhatsApp Messenger
Yet another bright spot on Meta’s portfolio, WhatsApp Messenger offers exactly what its name implies — real-time communication. This messenger bundles a variety of interactive features, including disappearing messages, audio and video calls, chat wallpapers, voice status, communities, and others. WhatsApp Business also offers businesses a unique opportunity to connect with their customers directly and showcase their services.
In 2024, the app dabbled in AI features, beta testing add-ons like image generation and helpful Meta AI chat. Today, WhatsApp caters to over 2 billion people in over 180 countries. According to Sensor Tower, it's the fourth most popular social media app in the world, with 150 million quarterly downloads.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
X
Abandoning its familiar 140-character limit and bluebird logo, Twitter has rebranded from a text-based social sharing platform into a new ‘everything app’ called X. Along with a new name, the app doubled down on paid subscriptions, adjusted its content curation and shifted its approach to check marks.
Lately, X rolled out Stories, powered by AI chatbot Grok, and is planning on launching a dedicated TV app for videos uploaded to the platform. After the rebrand, the app experienced an exodus of users and top ad publishers, resulting in a reported $2.98 billion in ad revenue for the year.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Yazio
Yazio is a food and calorie counter application that helps users reach their fitness goals by tracking food intake and calories burned. The application has weight management features, including personal plans, calorie tables, a nutrition tracker and food diary, a built-in barcode scanner, and a steps tracker.
Yazio also integrates with Health App and other fitness apps and also allows users to sync it with the Watch App. The application now has a thriving community of over 50 million users.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
YouTube
The YouTube application is a source of unlimited content served to the user based on granular algorithms. In 2024, the platform significantly expanded creator tools with the YouTube Create app, explored AI integration through Google Gemini, monetized Shorts, and launched several new features for short-form content.
At the beginning of 2024, YouTube was one of the three apps to surpass $500 billion in consumer spend. Its TikTok-inspired feature, YouTube Shorts, accumulated 70 billion daily views in 2023.
Available on: App Store, Google Play.
Leverage these trends
The top trending mobile apps vary by category and unique selling proposition. However, they all share a commonality: a high-quality user experience accompanied by a set of tech-savvy and customer-driven features.
If you want your application to hit it off with the customer, Orangesoft knows how to tap into users' minds. Our mobile app development company combines 13+ years of experience with domain proficiency to create a mobile application doomed to succeed. Contact us to discuss your upcoming project.
