Clash of Clans Beats Candy Crush in Earnings as Facebook Takes Charge for the Most Downloads

App Annie, an App Store analytics firm recently published a report that offers some interesting insights into some of the most used apps on iOS.

One thing that seemed obvious about this report is Facebook taking the top spot as far as the number of downloads is concerned.

According to App Annie, Facebook standalone app was the first on the list of the most downloaded apps of all time, closely being followed by its counterpart, Facebook Messenger. Another of Facebook Inc.’s family of apps was Instagram, coming in at position four and lastly, WhatsApp was number six on the list of the most downloaded apps on this Apple mobile platform.

Report covers data from 2010 to present

The report revealed by App Annie does not represent the figures as of last year or this year for that matter. However, the company has put into consideration all the data it has been collecting ever since it started this business back in 2010.

As much as Facebook is dominating the list of top 10 most downloaded apps with a massive 40%, there are also other players in the industry that are doing incredibly well. Among these players are Google and Microsoft who have YouTube and Skype in the list respectively. Twitter came in at number 9, with the iTunes U app coming in at position 10.

The United States was listed as the country with the most downloads for all the 10 apps in the top list. However, it seems China is a growing market for iOS users as it has something to do with the appearance of the iTunes U app on the list of top 10 most downloaded apps.

Top 10 most downloaded apps are not good at making money

One surprising thing about the App Annie report is that on the list of top 10 most downloaded apps, there is no app that appears on the list of the top 10 earners over the same period. While the top 10 most downloaded section is dominated by apps that are at least 4 years old, the list of top 10 revenue generating apps was mostly made of younger apps, mostly belonging to the communication, dating or entertainment niches.

Pandora is the most earning app while LINE messaging app comes in at position two. This list also has Microsoft’s Skype at no.7 and LINE PLAY rounds up the list of the top 10 apps with the highest revenues. As you can see, Skype is the only app that made it on both lists.

Even though iOS platform is known for its premium apps, the list of top earners in this niche was dominated by freemium apps. The only paid app that made it to this list was Apple’s Pages, but this app is currently available as a free version as the company made it so, back in 2013.

Candy Crush tops downloads charts, but Clash of Clans tops revenue charts

In the gaming department, as expected, Candy Crush was at the top of the list of the most downloaded games on iPhone, featuring in more than 100 countries. However, this did not deter Clash of Clans from doing its thing on the revenue side. This game was listed as the most grossing ever, alongside other Supercell games such as Hay Day and Boom Beach. Other players that did well in the gaming department were Japanese games such as Puzzle & Dragons as well as Monster Strike which were ranked at position 3 and 5 respectively.