Instagram narrowly beats TikTok as the most downloaded app

It was reported late last year that TikTok was the most popular app of 2021. But app market data source Sensor Tower reported that Instagram takes the lead in the list of most downloaded apps in the last quarter of 2021, narrowly beating TikTok. This includes downloads on both iOS and Android.

According to Sensor Tower, Instagram “had its best quarter since at least 2014” during Q4 2021. Instagram was also Meta’s first app to take the top spot since WhatsApp in Q4 2019. Trailing Instagram in second place is TikTok, however this doesn’t mean that the app beat TikTok for the whole year.

TikTok is still reportedly the number one most downloaded app of 2021, with 656 million downloads. Behind the app is Instagram with 545 million, and Facebook in third place with 416 million.

Even then, TikTok still came second in the ranking for the recent quarter, and it’s not the first time that TikTok hasn’t come first in the global rankings either. It was surpassed in the second quarter of 2020 by Zoom.

Instagram’s rise in popularity can be explained by the ban of TikTok in India at the start of the year. The ban of the Chinese app was due to a “digital strike”, followed a skirmish with Chinese troops at a disputed Himalayan border site when 20 Indian soldiers were killed. Users in India likely used Instagram’s Reels as a TikTok alternative.

In Q4 2021, there were 36.1 billion app downloads on the App Store and Google Play. They were mostly dominated by Android users with 27.8 billion downloads worldwide, compared to 8.3 billion for iOS fans.

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