This Week in Apps: TikTok viral hit breaks Spotify records, inauguration boosts news app installs, judge rules against Parler

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry is as hot as ever, with   218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also   3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. And in the U.S., app usage surged ahead of the time spent watching live TV. Currently, the average American watches 3.7 hours of live TV per day...
Tags: Iphone, Apple, Google, Amazon, Android, Food, Mobile, Facebook, Apps, Asia, South Korea, Twitter, Spotify, Europe, Real Estate, London

We Are Social’s Monday Mashup #523

TikTok adds new restrictions for young usersWith teens defining TikTok’s user base, the platform is stepping up its attempts to protect younger users. The ‘groundbreaking’ new restrictions feature particularly strict new rules for users under 16, who are no longer able to receive comments from strangers, have their videos used for ‘duets’ or mark their posts as available to be downloaded. Their accounts will also be defaulted to ‘private,’ which prevents anyone other than friends from viewing th...
Tags: Facebook, UK, Youtube, White House, Germany, Nigeria, Barack Obama, Seo, Joe Biden, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Mashup, App Annie, Trump, US Capitol, US France

Twitter is bringing Moments to Indian social app Dailyhunt

Five years after its launch, Twitter Moments is growing beyond the American social networking platform. On Monday, Twitter said it had partnered with Dailyhunt to bring Moments to the Indian social app. Dailyhunt app now has a dedicated tab called ‘Twitter Moments India’ to showcase curated tweets pertaining to news and other events in the world’s second largest internet market. The partnership will allow Twitter to extend its reach in India, where according to mobile insight firm App Annie (dat...
Tags: Social, Apps, Asia, Twitter, India, Tech, App Annie, Twitter Moments, Facebook India, Twitter India, Dailyhunt, Manish Maheshwari, Twitter Moments India, Dailyhunt Umang Bedi

App Annie: Mobile Ad Spending Hit $240B in 2020

Mobile data and application analytics company App Annie released its State of Mobile 2021 report, which analyzed the ways consumers interacted with mobile apps in 2020. According to the report, new app downloads, app store spending, daily time spent and mobile ad spending all increased in 2020 when compared with 2019. For instance, mobile ad...
Tags: Advertising, App Annie, Platforms, Social Pro Daily

Signal is now top of both Google and Apple's app stores. Downloads skyrocketed 4,200% after WhatsApp announced it would force users to share personal data with Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, which owns WhatsApp. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas WhatsApp informed users Wednesday that they would have to start sharing some personal data with its parent company, Facebook, starting February 8. Data indicates this helped drive a huge spike in downloads on the rival encrypted messaging app Signal, which on Wednesday topped Google and Apple's app stores. Signal saw 7.5 million downloads last week, a 4,200% increase on the previous week. Telegram, a similar app, sa...
Tags: Apple, Google, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, UK, Privacy, India, US, Trends, European Union, Whatsapp, Edward Snowden, Fox News, Biden, Telegram

Signal downloads skyrocketed 4,200% after WhatsApp announced it would force users to share personal data with Facebook. It's top of both Google and Apple's app stores.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, which owns WhatsApp. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas WhatsApp informed users Wednesday that they would have to start sharing some personal data with its parent company, Facebook, starting February 8. Data indicates this helped drive a huge spike in downloads on the rival encrypted messaging app Signal, which on Wednesday topped Google and Apple's app stores. Signal saw 7.5 million downloads last week, a 4,200% increase on the previous week. Telegram, a similar app, sa...
Tags: Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, UK, Privacy, India, US, Trends, European Union, Whatsapp, Edward Snowden, Fox News, Biden

App stores saw record 218 billion downloads in 2020, consumer spend of $143 billion

Mobile adoption continued to grow in 2020, in part due to the market forces of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to App Annie’s annual “State of Mobile” industry report, mobile app downloads grew by 7% year-over-year to a record 218 billion in 2020. Meanwhile, consumer spending grew by 20% to also hit a new milestone of $143 billion, led by markets that included China, the United States, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom. Consumers also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android dev...
Tags: Google, Amazon, Android, Facebook, Apps, Messenger, South Korea, Spotify, Japan, The Weather Channel, Pinterest, Instagram, Indonesia, Youtube, France, China

Signal’s Brian Acton talks about exploding growth, monetization and WhatsApp data-sharing outrage

Brian Acton is crossing paths again with Facebook. Over more than a decade of building and operating WhatsApp, the company’s co-founder first competed against and then sold his instant messaging app to the social juggernaut. Only a few years ago he parted ways with the company that made him a billionaire in a bitter split over messaging and privacy. Now Acton says the ongoing outrage over what Facebook has done to the messaging service he helped build is driving people to his latest project — Si...
Tags: Google Play Store, Social, Facebook, Apps, Tech, Whatsapp, Mozilla, App Store, Telegram, Signal, App Annie, Don, Acton, Wikimedia Foundation, US Capitol, Facebook Users

YouTube and WhatsApp Inch Closer To Half a Billion Users in India

An anonymous reader shares a report: WhatsApp has enjoyed unrivaled reach in India for years. By mid-2019, the Facebook-owned app had amassed over 400 million users in the country. Its closest app rival at the time was YouTube, which, according to the company's own statement and data from mobile insight firm App Annie, had about 260 million users in India then. Things have changed dramatically since. In the month of December, YouTube had 425 million monthly active users on Android phones and tab...
Tags: Google, Facebook, Youtube, China, India, Tech, Silicon Valley, App Annie

YouTube and WhatsApp inch closer to half a billion users in India

WhatsApp has enjoyed unrivaled reach in India for years. By mid-2019, the Facebook-owned app had amassed over 400 million users in the country. Its closest app rival at the time was YouTube, which, according to the company’s own statement and data from mobile insight firm App Annie, had about 260 million users in India then. Things have changed dramatically since. In the month of December, YouTube had 425 million monthly active users on Android phones and tablets in India, according to App...
Tags: Google, Mobile, Facebook, Apps, Asia, Media, Youtube, China, India, Tech, Whatsapp, Netflix, Silicon Valley, App Annie, Comscore, Google-chrome

Apple App Store customers spent $1.8B over the week of Christmas, set a spending record on New Year’s Day

Apple this morning offered an updated look at its App Store business with the release of its holiday sales figures. The company said App Store customers spent $1.8 billion in apps during the week of Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, driven largely by games. And App Store customers also hit a new single-day spending record on New Year’s Day of over $540 million. What Apple didn’t fully spell out was to what extent the pandemic played a role in increased app spending over the course of 2020. It di...
Tags: Apple, Apps, Australia, Disney, Tech, App Store, Apple Music, App Annie, Apple App Store, Roblox, Apple Books, Apple Arcade, Autoplay Apple

Facebook launches revamped Instagram Lite app in India

Facebook is working to bring back the Instagram Lite app, months after it shut down the light version offering worldwide. The social conglomerate said on Wednesday that it is testing the revamped Instagram Lite app in India, where it hopes to “gain valuable insights” about the new offering before “a global rollout” of the app later. The revamped Instagram Lite app weighs less than 2MB and delivers a “fast, reliable, and responsive” experience of the social service. The Android app supports...
Tags: Social, Facebook, Apps, Mark Zuckerberg, Asia, Instagram, India, Tech, Whatsapp, Bose, Facebook Lite, App Annie, Shah, Reliance, Abhijit Bose, Ajit Mohan

Facebook relaunches Instagram Lite app, begins test in India

Facebook is working to bring back the Instagram Lite app, months after it shut down the light version offering worldwide. The social conglomerate said on Wednesday that it is testing the revamped Instagram Lite app in India, where it hopes to “gain valuable insights” about the new offering before “a global rollout” of the app later. The revamped Instagram Lite app weighs less than 2MB and delivers a “fast, reliable, and responsive” experience of the social service. The Android app supports...
Tags: Social, Facebook, Apps, Mark Zuckerberg, Asia, Instagram, India, Tech, Whatsapp, Bose, Facebook Lite, App Annie, Shah, Reliance, Abhijit Bose, Ajit Mohan

The pandemic had Android users spending 25% more time on their phones than last year

Doomscrolling is real and it has consumed us this year. According to analytics firm App Annie’s year-end report, Android users spent 3.3 trillion hours stuck to their screens — up 25% from last year. However, the report suggests that mindlessly scrolling your Twitter or Instagram feed wasn’t the biggest contributor to this stat. On the contrary, it was spending time on video conferencing and work apps such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams. App Annie observed that due to the pandemic and work-from-hom...
Tags: Startups, Instagram, Microsoft, App Annie, Plugged

App Annie: TikTok Was the Most Downloaded App Worldwide in 2020

Mobile data and analytics company App Annie released a new year-end report analyzing worldwide mobile application usage in 2020. According to the report, worldwide mobile app and game downloads will reach 130 billion across the iTunes App Store and Google Play in 2020. Both app stores experienced 10% year-over-year growth this year. App AnnieApp Annie...
Tags: Google, Advertising, App Annie, Platforms, Social Pro Daily

App stores to see 130 billion downloads in 2020 and record consumer spend of $112 billion

Consumers will have downloaded 130 billion apps in 2020 across iOS and Google Play, up 10% year-over-year, according to mobile data and analytics firm App Annie’s year-end forecast. Consumer spending across the two app stores will also grow by 25% year-over-year to reach $112 billion by year end, the firm also predicts. Typically, much of the download growth is led by emerging markets, but this year things were different. Due the COVID-19 pandemic, mobile adoption accelerated by 2 to 3 years. As...
Tags: Apple, Google, Google Play, Startups, Facebook, Apps, South Korea, Japan, China, Germany, App Annie, U S China, Instagram Messenger, Android App Annie

U.S. shopping app downloads on Black Friday reached a record 2.8M installs

Many U.S. consumers spent this year’s Black Friday sales event shopping from home on mobile devices. That led to first-time installs of mobile shopping apps in the U.S. to break a new record for single-day installs on Black Friday 2020, according . The firm estimates that U.S. consumers downloaded approximately 2.8 million shopping apps on November 27th — a figure that’s up by nearly 8% over last year. However, this number doesn’t necessarily represent faster growth than in 2019, which also saw...
Tags: Travel, Google, Amazon, Cyber Monday, Black Friday, Google Play, Mobile, Ecommerce, Apps, Business, Shopping, Marketing, Nike, Walmart, E-commerce, Online Shopping

US shopping app downloads on Black Friday reached a record 2.8M installs

Many U.S. consumers spent this year’s Black Friday sales event shopping from home on mobile devices. That led to first-time installs of mobile shopping apps in the U.S. to break a new record for single-day installs on Black Friday 2020, according . The firm estimates that U.S. consumers downloaded approximately 2.8 million shopping apps on November 27th — a figure that’s up by nearly 8% over last year. However, this number doesn’t necessarily represent faster growth than in 2019, which also saw...
Tags: Google, Amazon, Cyber Monday, Black Friday, Google Play, Mobile, Ecommerce, Apps, Business, Shopping, Marketing, US, Tech, Nike, Walmart, E-commerce

This Week in Apps: Snapchat clones TikTok, India bans 43 Chinese apps, more data on App Store commission changes

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications, and the overall app economy. The app industry is as hot as ever, with  204 billion downloads and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019. People now spend three hours and 40 minutes per day using apps, rivaling TV. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a  $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those wi...
Tags: Apple, Google, Mobile, Facebook, Apps, Microsoft, Washington, China, India, Samsung, Tech, Paypal, Developers, Snapchat, Nintendo, Microsoft Office

Despite pandemic, forecasts predict U.S. online holiday sales increase of 20%-30% or more

Strong e-commerce sales are predicted to help lift overall holiday retail spending in the U.S., according to forecasts released today by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and eMarketer. Both firms expect to see overall retail sales growth during November and December, though the market may be impacted by slowing brick-and-mortar sales. Of the two, NRF had the more optimistic forecast. It estimates U.S. holiday sales during November and December will increase between 3.6% and 5.2% year-over-ye...
Tags: Cyber Monday, Black Friday, TC, Ecommerce, Thanksgiving, Shopping, Tech, E-commerce, United States, Retail, App Annie, Emarketer, Nrf, Wall St, National Retail Federation NRF, Amazon Walmart

Despite pandemic, forecasts predict US online holiday sales increase of 20%-30% or more

Strong e-commerce sales are predicted to help lift overall holiday retail spending in the U.S., according to forecasts released today by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and eMarketer. Both firms expect to see overall retail sales growth during November and December, though the market may be impacted by slowing brick-and-mortar sales. Of the two, NRF had the more optimistic forecast. It estimates U.S. holiday sales during November and December will increase between 3.6% and 5.2% year-over-ye...
Tags: Cyber Monday, TC, Ecommerce, Thanksgiving, Shopping, US, Tech, E-commerce, United States, Retail, App Annie, Emarketer, Nrf, Wall St, National Retail Federation NRF, Amazon Walmart

This Week in Apps: Apple slashes commissions, Twitter launches Fleets, warnings about Parler

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the TechCrunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all. The app industry is as hot as ever, with   204 billion downloads and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019. People are now spending three hours and 40 minutes per day using apps, rivaling TV. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a   $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher ...
Tags: Apple, Google, Amazon, TC, Facebook, Apps, Twitter, Japan, Instagram, Supreme Court, Australia, Washington Post, Youtube, Ipo, Tech, Eu

New forecast pegs TikTok to top 1.2B monthly active users in 2021

TikTok’s upward trajectory is expected to continue in 2021, according to a new forecast from mobile data and analytics firm App Annie, which estimates the short-form video app will surpass the 1 billion monthly active user mark next year. The expanded forecast also looked into future trends around mobile ad spending and the growth in “at-home” activities fueled by mobile, like e-commerce and online meetings, for example. TikTok’s growth numbers, however, were the standout estimate from the new r...
Tags: Apps, India, Tech, Biden, App Annie, Trump, Mau, Tiktok, Facebook Instagram Messenger WhatsApp YouTube

Calm’s hilarious CNN ad campaign sent the meditation app flying up App Store charts

Meditation app Calm’s brilliant and hilarious marketing campaign that saw it sponsoring CNN’s coverage of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election results this week seems to have paid off for the business. The app, which today offers mindful meditations, peaceful sounds and sleep stories, had flashed on screen during CNN’s “Key Race Alert” coverage, reminding users of the need to relax during this stressful time. According to data from third-party app store analytics and marketing firms, Sensor To...
Tags: TC, Apps, Youtube, Tech, Cnn, Meditation, Mindfulness, App-store, Msnbc, Presidential Election, App Annie, Calm, U S App Store, Josh Billinson, U S App Annie, NowThis Facebook

Gen Z spends 10% more time in non-game apps than older users

A new report released today by App Annie digs into how Gen Z consumers engage with their smartphones and mobile apps. According to data collected in Q3 2020, Gen Z users spend an average of 4.1+ hours per month in non-gaming apps, or 10% longer than older demographics. They also engage with apps more often, with 20% more sessions per user in non-gaming apps at 120 sessions per month per app, compared with older groups. This app engagement data is only a view into Gen Z trends but is an incomplet...
Tags: Apps, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, France, Tech, Turkey, Brazil, Match, App Annie, Shein, PUBG Mobile, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Tiktok, Ted Krantz, App Annie App Annie

Consumers spent a record $28 billion in apps in Q3, aided by pandemic

Mobile usage continues to remain high amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, which has prompted social distancing measures and lockdown policies, and has pushed consumers to connect online for work, school and socializing. This, in turn, has helped drive record spending in apps during the quarter, as well as a huge surge in time spent in apps. According to a new report from App Annie, consumers in the third quarter downloaded 33 billion new apps globally and spent a record $28 billion in apps — up 20% ye...
Tags: Google, Google Play, Facebook, Apps, South Korea, Japan, Mexico, India, Disney, Tech, Brazil, App Annie, China India Brazil, Pandemic, Sensor Tower, Facebook WhatsApp Messenger and Instagram

iOS App Store Spending Grew 20% YoY to $18 Billion in Q3 2020

Mobile app spending among consumers in the third quarter of 2020 saw a 20 percent year-on-year increase as well as a surge in time spent in apps, according to a new report from App Annie (via TechCrunch). Smartphone and tablet users downloaded 33 billion new apps globally and spent a record $28 billion in apps, over a period in which consumers' lives were heavily impacted by lockdowns and social distancing measures in response to the ongoing global health crisis. Users also spent over 180 bi...
Tags: Apple, Google, Google Play, Google Play Store, Facebook, South Korea, Japan, China, India, Disney, App Annie, Facebook WhatsApp Messenger and Instagram, TikTok YouTube, Amazon Twitter Netflix Spotify TikTok

Daily Crunch: Waymo opens up driverless ride-hailing

Alphabet’s self-driving technology company hits a major milestone, Apple TV+ extends its free subscription period and Affirm files to go public. This is your Daily Crunch for October 8, 2020. The big story: Waymo opens up driverless ride-hailing Waymo hit a major milestone today: It’s offering fully driverless rides to (some) members of the public. While the Alphabet-owned company has offered plenty of self-driving rides before, they usually came with a human in the driver’s seat for ...
Tags: Apple, Google, Amazon, Technology, California, America, Tech, General Motors, Apple TV, Companies, X, Automotive, Automation, Gm, Ibm, Self-driving Cars

Truecaller tops 250 million users

Popular caller-identification service Truecaller has amassed 250 million monthly active users and 200 million daily active users, demonstrating an accelerated pace of growth in recent quarters even as a global pandemic has hurt most businesses, it said on Wednesday. The service, run by eponymous Stockholm-headquartered firm, allows users to avoid spam calls by identifying the callers and also filters similar texts. The service is popular in many parts of the world, but India, where everyone r...
Tags: Apple, Google, Android, Facebook, Apps, Asia, India, Tech, Sequoia Capital, Stockholm, App Annie, Truecaller, Kjell, Fredrik, Alan Mamedi, Mamedi

This Week in Apps: Redesigning the iOS 14 home screen, app makers form ‘fairness’ coalition, latest on TikTok ban

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the TechCrunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all. The app industry is as hot as ever, with   204 billion downloads and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019. People are now spending three hours and 40 minutes per day using apps, rivaling TV. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a   $544 billion valuation, 6.5x high...
Tags: Apple, Google, TC, Mobile, Facebook, Apps, Twitter, UK, England, Pinterest, Adobe, Microsoft, Etsy, Scotland, China, Time