Report: Analysis of 2.9 millions apps on Google Play

This report about apps (2 850 505 apps), you can also read report about games.

This report is based on our Google Play database, which contains 2 937 215 apps and 513 848 games with data for the US. This report about apps, you can also read report about games.

The database is available for free download for subscribers of the Monthly Report Google Play.

Note: The number of paid apps is quite small 88054 (3%) so we don't consider them separately.

Number of apps by year

The largest growth occurred in 2019 (72%) and 2020 (32%).

Number of apps in categories

There are most apps in the following categories:

  • Education (386518)
  • Business (249219)
  • Tools (235917)
  • Music & Audio (216562)
  • Entertainment (210275)

The fewest apps in the following categories:

  • Comics (3302)
  • Parenting (5986)
  • Libraries & Demo (6917)
  • House & Home (9075)
  • Dating (9530)

Total installs per category

This is the sum of all installs in the category.

The most installs are in the following categories:

  • Tools (102B)
  • Communication (63B)
  • Productivity (35B)
  • Entertainment (26B)
  • Video Players & Editors (25B)

The following categories have the fewest installs:

  • Events (121M)
  • House & Home (237M)
  • Libraries & Demo (321M)
  • Parenting (322M)
  • Beauty (506M)

Average installs per category

However, if we calculate the average number of installs, the leaders change:

  • Video Players & Editors (1M)
  • Communication (789K)
  • Photography (465K)
  • Tools (431K)
  • Weather (374K)

Number of apps by number of installs

More than 1 million installs have only 32117 (1%) apps 61 % of them have a score above 4.

More than 10K installs have 457817 (16%) apps 29 % of them have a score above 4.

More than 10 000 installs

Categories with the most apps with more than 10 000 installs:

  • Education, 54388 (14%)
  • Tools, 47815 (20%)
  • Entertainment, 46617 (22%)
  • Music & Audio, 31271 (14%)
  • Books & Reference, 28311 (20%)

Categories with the fewest apps with more than 10 000 installs:

  • House & Home, 785 (9%)
  • Libraries & Demo, 860 (12%)
  • Events, 1034 (5%)
  • Comics, 1130 (34%)
  • Parenting, 1421 (24%)

Distribution of score by number of installs

Normal distribution of stars:

  • 5 star: 70%
  • 4 star: 10%
  • 3 star: 5%
  • 2 star: 3%
  • 1 star: 12%

Like a table:

Installs 1 star (%) 2 star (%) 3 star (%) 4 star (%) 5 star (%)
0 10.97 1.98 1.75 6.65 78.65
1 36.46 4.41 6.06 7.29 45.78
5 6.40 0.99 0.99 8.37 83.25
10 6.93 1.94 1.22 4.26 85.64
50 2.94 0.96 0.94 2.41 92.75
100 6.44 1.37 2.40 5.57 84.22
500 8.80 2.23 3.37 7.53 78.06
1K 11.69 2.83 4.32 8.85 72.31
5K 12.57 3.08 4.69 9.72 69.94
10K 12.90 3.09 5.02 9.85 69.14
50K 12.62 3.01 5.07 10.25 69.05
100K 12.61 2.98 5.16 10.69 68.56
500K 12.52 2.94 5.16 10.81 68.58
1M 12.38 2.80 4.95 10.74 69.14
5M 11.65 2.69 4.70 10.64 70.33
10M 10.92 2.39 4.38 10.53 71.78
50M 9.72 2.39 4.19 9.98 73.71
100M 8.79 2.17 4.15 10.78 74.12
500M 8.16 2.31 4.47 10.84 74.22
1B 12.95 2.89 4.96 10.15 69.05
5B 18.68 2.93 5.11 9.93 63.35
10B 12.56 3.27 5.52 10.25 68.40

Distribution of score by genre

Genres with a lot of dissatisfied users:

  • Social
  • Events
  • Libraries & Demo
  • Dating
  • Entertainment

Average score by number of installs

Average in-app purchase price

The average maximum price for in-app purchases is $37.

The most expensive purchases are in the following categories:

  • Social ($78)
  • Business ($73)
  • Dating ($72)
  • Lifestyle ($51)
  • Health & Fitness ($51)

The cheapest purchases in the following categories:

  • Travel & Local ($16)
  • Personalization ($19)
  • Music & Audio ($20)
  • Maps & Navigation ($20)
  • Food & Drink ($21)

Number of apps with in-app purchases

On average, only 126015 (6%) of apps contain an IAP, but there are categories where the percentage of apps with in-app purchases is higher:

  • Dating (29%)
  • Weather (20%)
  • Parenting (14%)
  • Comics (14%)
  • News & Magazines (10%)

Number of apps with advertising

On average, 40% of apps contain ads, but there are categories where the percentage of apps with ads is higher:

  • Photography (80%)
  • Music & Audio (77%)
  • Books & Reference (71%)
  • Personalization (70%)
  • Comics (69%)

Average number of screenshots by category

Average number of screenshots for all genres: 7.

Number of screenshots

2364977 (81%) apps have less than 10 screenshots

There are even 1 apps with 0 screenshots. You can check it:

Apps with less than 10 screenshots have 104801 installs on average.

Apps with more than 10 screenshots have 263289 installs on average.

If you look at the grouping by the number of installs, you can see that the more installs, the more screenshots.

Apps with the highest number of screenshots:

However, there is no correlation between the number of screenshots and the number of installs.

Number of developers per genre

Total developers 990157. On average, there are 2.97 apps per developer.

The most developers in the categories:

  • Business (142691)
  • Tools (137551)
  • Education (130884)
  • Entertainment (92798)
  • Productivity (92523)

Least developers in the categories:

  • Comics (2279)
  • Libraries & Demo (4588)
  • Parenting (4734)
  • Weather (6187)
  • Dating (6938)

At the same time, 647107 (65%) developers have published only one app. Among them, only 15% have received more than 10,000 installs. And only 6979 (1% of 65%) received more than 1 million installs.

Number of developers by years

From 2014 to 2021, the number of developers on Google Play grew by 39 percent per year. The largest growth occurred in 2019 (77%) and 2020 (31%).


TOP 100 developers

The spreadsheet is available on Google Docs.

Popular genres among TOP 100 developers. The number indicates how many developers from the TOP 100 have an app in this genre.

  • Tools, 57
  • Entertainment, 53
  • Personalization, 47
  • Productivity, 40
  • Photography, 40
  • Lifestyle, 36
  • Music & Audio, 35
  • Communication, 32
  • Video Players & Editors, 32
  • Business, 28
  • Education, 28
  • Books & Reference, 21
  • Art & Design, 19
  • Social, 19
  • Weather, 18
  • Finance, 17
  • Health & Fitness, 13
  • Shopping, 13
  • Travel & Local, 8
  • News & Magazines, 8
  • Sports, 7
  • Libraries & Demo, 6
  • Beauty, 6
  • Maps & Navigation, 6
  • House & Home, 6
  • Comics, 5
  • Food & Drink, 5
  • Auto & Vehicles, 4
  • Events, 4
  • Medical, 3
  • Parenting, 3
  • Dating, 1

If you have any ideas, write to tapivedotcom@gmail.com.

To receive such monthly reports - subscribe to our newsletter.