Top Countries by App Downloads in Q4 2018

The top country in terms of app downloads in Q4 2018 was India with close to five billion new installs, an increase of more than one billion year-over-year, or 25 percent. Almost 98 percent of India’s downloads were from Google Play, owing to the country’s much larger installed base of Android devices in relation to Apple-made hardware.

The following report details the top countries by downloads on both the App Store and Google Play, according to estimates from Sensor Tower’s Store Intelligence platform.

After India, the United States saw the next largest number of new installs with close to three billion in total, followed by Brazil, Indonesia, and Russia. The top 10 countries were the same as the previous quarter. The U.S. and Japan were the only countries with the majority of their downloads coming from the App Store.

As Google Play is not available in China, we have excluded the country from the above chart.

China had the most new app installs for the App Store last quarter at two billion, which represented a year-over-year decline of 11.5 percent. This reduction is attributable to multiple factors, including a pause on new mobile game approvals during 2018 and a slowdown in iOS device sales in the country. The U.S. had the second largest number of new installs for the quarter, followed by Japan, Great Britain, and Russia.

The gap between China and the U.S. was 368 million in Q4 2018, less than half of the 766 million difference from a year prior. Japan installs grew 5.2 percent year-over-year, while Great Britain and Russia’s totals did not change significantly compared to the prior year.

India had the most new app installs for Google Play, followed by Brazil, the U.S., Indonesia, and Russia. Downloads in India reached 4.82 billion, up 37 percent year-over-year and 6 percent quarter-over-quarter.

Store Intelligence users can see app revenue and app download estimates for the above publishers in addition to historical performance metrics on the Sensor Tower platform. Our estimates include worldwide downloads for the App Store and Google Play between Oct. 1, 2017 and Dec. 31, 2018. Apple apps and Google pre-installed apps are excluded. We report unique installs only. Android estimates do not include third-party stores. Figures represent aggregate installs of all app versions, ex: Facebook and Facebook Lite.