ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has emerged as one of the leading global markets for mobile app downloads in 2024, securing the ninth position worldwide with 3.56 billion installs — a 9.2% year-on-year (YoY) increase, according to data shared by IT consultancy firm Data Darbar.
The country also ranked 12th globally in terms of total time spent on apps, with Pakistanis logging 79.1 billion hours — a 14.1% jump compared to the previous year. The surge highlights the growing importance of smartphones in the daily lives of users.
Average monthly mobile data usage rose to 8.4 gigabytes per user, while total broadband consumption exceeded 13,000 petabytes across 134.8 billion mobile broadband subscriptions.
Despite the surge in usage and downloads, Pakistan’s app development sector experienced a slowdown.
The number of active developers dropped by 26% in 2024, and Android app releases declined by 55%. In total, 2,500 new apps were launched during the year, including 1,053 mobile games and 784 iOS applications.
TikTok remained the most downloaded app in Pakistan with 32.4 million installs, followed by CapCut at 27.1 million, Facebook at 24.3 million, and WhatsApp at 22.7 million. WhatsApp Business also posted strong demand with 20.9 million downloads.
Among streaming apps, Tamasha led with 10.2 million installs, ahead of Netflix (3.7 million) and Tapmad (2.5 million).
Regionally, Pakistan recorded the highest growth in app downloads, outpacing countries like Indonesia (8.6%), the Philippines (1.2%), and Mexico (1.2%). In contrast, Vietnam and Egypt experienced declines of 13.6% and 1.7%, respectively.
On the global front, mobile usage remained robust in 2024, with a total of 136 billion app downloads and 4.2 trillion hours spent on mobile apps. Mobile advertising also saw significant investment, reaching $195 million in spending.
In-app purchases generated $150 billion in revenue worldwide, while artificial intelligence apps experienced a boom — amassing 1.49 billion downloads and contributing $1.27 billion in revenue, the report noted.
