From a global aspect, Google commands a healthy lead over Apple when you look at the number of people using both its smartphones and mobile operating system. When you look at the high-end consumer market, like the North America market, Apple’s smartphone competes much better against Google’s smartphones.
However, when you look at the number of apps people frequently use, Google wins over Apple with no questions asked; it’s a Google world. Looking at the North American market, Google has five of the top 10 most popular mobile apps. Facebook can also pride itself of having three apps on the top 10 most popular apps in the U.S.
It is rather surprising that Apple, with all the reputation, respect and authority it seems to impact on the tech world, has only two apps among the top 10 most popular apps in the U.S. This ranking was done by Nielsen who tabulated their finding in the chart shown below.
As far as Apple is concerned, there is still some good news behind this research. Apple Music App has not been receiving the most flattering reviews as Apple might have wished, but according to the rankings. Apple Music app is doing much better; being U.S.’s 9th most popular app and having some 54 million plus users.
Compared to last year, Apple Music app has increased in popularity by as much as 26 percent. That might not make sense since last year it was an entirely different app. It gets, even more, confusing when you remember that in October 2015, Tim Cook was quoted saying that Apple Music had 6.5 million paying subscribers; and several other millions of users on a free trial plan.
Perhaps the confusion could be coming from the fact that Nielsen survey tabulated all the people that opened Apple Music app, who are not necessarily the people who paid for the service. Nielsen survey might also include users who use the app to play music they already own.
