Apple Announces 20 Most Popular Apps of 2018 and YouTube Is the Winner

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 2:11PM EST · Published Dec 4, 6:20AM EST

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Apple Announces 20 Most Popular Apps of 2018 and YouTube Is the Winner — © alexsl / Getty Images

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has posted its Best of 2018 list. It is a compilation of what Apple experts think are the best apps from the App Store, best music from Apple Music, the best Apple podcasts, TV and movies, and books. The list also includes the 20 most downloaded free apps from the Apple App Store. This most downloaded list is dominated by Google products and social media apps.

Google’s YouTube, the largest video-sharing service in the world, ranked as the most downloaded free app. Google bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion. It has become a major contributor to Google’s revenue because of video ads sold next to video content. YouTube Premium is another revenue source. It allows YouTube users to rent movies. Google also owns the number eight spot with Google Maps, the number nine spot with Gmail, the number 18 spot with Google Photos and the number 19 spot with Google Chrome. The list shows how Google has seized a lead in app use well beyond its search product.

Social networks include photo and video sharing platform Instagram, owned by Facebook, in the number two spot. Facebook itself is in the number five spot. It claims to have nearly 2.3 billion users worldwide. Messenger holds the number four spot. Twitter comes in at number 20. Snapchat, the photo-sharing app, is number three.

Several streaming media companies hold spots on the list. Netflix is number seven. It has 137 million subscribers around the world. Spotify ranks 10th. The music service company claims 83 million users. Pandora falls at number 14 and claims to have 73 million “active users.”

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Two widely used consumer services companies also can be found on the list. Global ride-sharing service Uber ranks at number 12 and Amazon at number 11. Amazon has several services used across the world. It claims over 100 million people subscribe to its Prime service. This makes it a leader in both e-commerce and streaming media.

The App Store started in 2010 as a means to promote Apple hardware. Apple claims it has 2.2 million apps available and 130 billion downloads since it opened. The real estate is critical to companies that want to reach consumers directly via Apple’s tens of millions of Macs and hundreds of millions of iPhones.

These are the 20 most downloaded apps of 2018:

YouTube
Instagram
Snapchat
Messenger
Facebook
Bitmoji
Netflix
Google Maps
Gmail
Spotify Music
Amazon
Uber
WhatsApp Messenger
Pandora
Wish
TikTok
Cash App
Google Photos
Google Chrome
Twitter

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.