According to Nielsen, just three companies are responsible for the 10 most used smartphone apps in the United States: Facebook (META -1.60%), Alphabet’s (GOOG -0.31%) (GOOGL -0.51%) Google, and Apple (AAPL -2.84%). As people spend more time on their mobile devices, these three companies are in prime positions to capitalize on their apps’ popularity and growth. But all three are taking different approaches to achieve success with their apps and to turning their popularity into profits for investors.
Facebook is notably different from both Google agata.id and Apple, since it doesn’t own a smartphone platform. Google has Android and Apple has iOS, which allows them to pre-install their own apps on users’ phones, giving them an advantage.
Still, Facebook owns three apps in the top 10: its flagship app (No. 1), Messenger (No. 3), and Instagram (No. 8). In fact, the big blue app is 30% more popular than the next leading app, YouTube. Facebook’s dominance in the mobile space is seen in its revenue growth. Mobile advertising revenue accounted for 78% of total ad revenue in the third quarter, up from 66% in the year-ago period.
With the help of Android, which is installed on more than 50% of smartphones in the U.S., Google dominates the top 10 apps, with five apps within the top seven. Google’s ability to pre-install apps on smartphones has led to its success with utilitarian apps Google Search (No. 4), Google Play (No. 5), Google Maps (No. 6), and Gmail (No. 7), while Google’s YouTube comes in just ahead of Facebook’s Messenger as the No. 2 most popular app on this list.While Google’s apps have proved very popular, user growth is missing. All five of the apps on the chart exhibit user growth in the 3%-8% range. Every other app on the chart, save Facebook (8%), exhibits double-digit growth.
Apple
Apple finds itself taking the bottom two places on this top 10 list, with Apple Music (No. 9) and its Maps app (No. 10).
The popularity of Apple Maps is a testament to the power of default apps. Despite lacking key features such as public-transit directions and street views in most cities, it’s still become much more popular than Google Maps on iOS. The benefit of having more people use Apple Maps may express itself well down the line as Apple looks to integrate its software with automobiles; it’s rumored to be working on a car design of its own.
The future in mobile
Mobile growth is key for all three of these tech giants. With Google and Facebook seeing more traffic from mobile than desktop users, maintaining their current momentum and positions in mobile is essential to their future revenue growth. Meanwhile, Apple is heavily reliant on iPhone sales for the bulk of its revenue. Maintaining popular apps and services is a surefire way to keep users from switching.Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Adam Levy owns shares of Apple. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Apple, and Facebook. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.