Apple and Google outperform the competition with virtual apps

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If you use an iPhone or Android phone, the majority of your most used apps are likely made by Apple and Google.

That’s the result from a new Comscore study that ranks the popularity of pre-installed iOS and Android apps, like Apple’s Messages, alongside apps made by other developers. The results show that the majority of the apps people use on their phones in the US come pre-installed by Apple or Google. The report was the first of its kind commissioned by Facebook, one of Apple’s biggest critics, and shared exclusively with The Verge.

Pre-installed services dominate when it comes to basics like weather, photos, and clocks, according to the report, indicating that it’s hard for other apps to compete. They appear in the iOS menu at all, and Gmail makes the iOS menu several entries under Apple Mail.

Apple and Google are increasingly under scrutiny for favoring their services

The timing, as Facebook likely intended, is apt: Apple and Google are increasingly under scrutiny for how they prefer their own services over competitors like Spotify. US lawmakers are currently reviewing a new batch of bills designed to curb Big Tech’s power, including legislation that would potentially prevent Apple and Google from giving their services the upper hand against competitors.

This rejection stems from how Apple and Google bundle their apps and services with their mobile operating systems in ways that some of their competitors think are unfair. The criticism is even harsher against Apple, since it controls more tightly the apps that come pre-installed on the iPhone and does not allow developers to circumvent its App Store.

At the same time, it was difficult to tell how popular these pre-installed apps are relative to apps made by third-party developers because Apple and Google do not disclose user numbers for their default apps. Research companies regularly track the popularity of apps available for download in app stores, but the Comscore study is the first real attempt to chart how virtual mobile apps compete with other developers.

You can watch the full interactive version here.

To prepare the report last December, Comscore used data it collects regularly from apps and websites along with a survey of nearly 4,000 people asking what default apps they used during the month of November. The results show that 75% of the top 20 iOS apps in the US were made by Apple, while Google made 60% of the best apps on Android. The top four apps on both platforms have been created by the respective parent company.

Facebook is the only third-party developer to have more than one app in the list for iOS and the only developer to have three apps in the list for Android. At random, 78 million people used Apple’s calculator app – more than Gmail users on Android.

Facebook paid for Comscore’s study to show “the impact of pre-installed apps on the competitive app ecosystem,” according to company spokesperson Joe Osborne. Social network executives have long criticized Apple’s restrictions on third-party developers for hampering their ability to distribute mobile games and compete effectively with iMessage.

Apple described the report as “seriously flawed”

Apple rejected the report’s findings. “This December 2020 Facebook-funded survey is narrowly designed to give the false impression that there is little competition for the App Store,” an Apple spokesperson told The Verge. “In fact, third-party apps compete with Apple’s apps across every category and enjoy widespread success.”

The spokesperson said that the survey’s methodology was “seriously flawed in many ways” and that the results are inconsistent with Comscore’s latest April 2021 ratings on app usage. But these ratings did not attempt to take into account the use of all pre-installed apps as did the Facebook study.

Google did not respond to requests for comment.

Besides showing Comscore app usage in the US for a certain period of time, there are a few other quirks in its methodology to note: Browsers like Apple’s Safari or Google Chrome didn’t include in the rating or what it calls “embedded playback of system features” like Siri. Android results are collected by specific phone manufacturers, which means that app usage is not broken down for Samsung phones relative to Google Pixel, for example.

However, the report notes that power platform owners have more than the apps used on their devices. It’s not just the app stores that act as a gateway, but the phones themselves.

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