Get the most important digital marketing news each day.

Note: By submitting this form, you agree to Third Door Media's terms. We respect your privacy.

Top 15 smartphone apps becoming a static list owned by Google, Facebook, Apple

Top apps list shows power is concentrated in just a few companies.

Greg Sterling on June 23, 2017 at 11:07 am

A new report from MomentFeed argues that “over 80 percent of consumer time on mobile devices is now spent on the apps, websites and properties” of just five companies: Facebook, Google, Apple, Yelp and Bing. According to comScore, more than 70 percent of consumer digital media time is mobile and mostly app-based.

The MomentFeed assertion is mostly mirrored in comScore’s most recent top 15 apps ranking:

Six companies are represented: Facebook, Google, Apple, Snapchat, Pandora and Amazon. Google and Facebook have nine of the top 15, Apple has three. There is less and less movement; Facebook has had the top mobile app since the day comScore started reporting this list several years ago.

Here’s what the rankings looked like in May 2014:

Twitter and Yahoo are gone, and Snapchat and Amazon are present, but mostly, it’s the same lineup as in the most recent chart.

The story the comScore data and MomentFeed data both tell is one of increasing concentration of consumer attention and power in the hands of a few top platforms: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon (although Microsoft doesn’t have any of the top 15 apps). This trend is also reflected on the advertising side, where Morgan Stanley has estimated that the vast majority of digital ad growth is being divided between Google and Facebook.

About The Author

Greg Sterling

Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog, Screenwerk, about connecting the dots between digital media and real-world consumer behavior. He is also VP of Strategy and Insights for the Local Search Association. Follow him on Twitter or find him at Google+.