Egypt Top In Africa For Mobile App Download In 2021- Report

*Egypt only African country to make it to the top 20 countries in the mobile market download segment according to 2020 data from AppAnnie
*China tops list with about a billion downloads in the year under review

By Juliet Gillies

Egypt was the top country in Africa in 2021 in terms of mobile markets by downloads. It was 11th in the world and the only African country to feature in the top 20 countries worldwide. Mobile downloads in Egypt have grown steadily over the past 3 years, from 1835m in 2019 to 2301m in 2020 and 2657m in 2021. 

Topping the list was China – way out ahead of all the rest – followed by India. The last two in the list were Saudi Arabia (19th) and Colombia (20th). The graph below shows Egypt in comparison to these four. Other emerging markets that made it into the list were: Brazil – 4th; Indonesia – 5th; Russia – 6th; Mexico – 7th ; Turkey – 8th; Vietnam – 9th; Philippines – 10th; Pakistan – 12th; Thailand – 14th.  

The top 20 worldwide list is dominated by emerging markets countries, as “developed markets tend to be further along the mobile app market maturity curve”, according to AppAnnie (www.AppAnnie.com). We see this in the steady increase in the figures for the last 3 years for China, India, Egypt and Colombia. The same trend was seen with all other emerging markets in the list. However, there was a decline in 2021 in Saudi Arabia – a developed market. The same trend was seen with all other developed markets on the list. However, these countries do show a continued increase over the last three years in average time spent on mobile per day. No African countries made it into this list of top countries worldwide.

So what are people downloading? Capcut is one – the editing tool for TikTok. This one is obvious, given the continued sky-rocketing of TikTok in 2021. See related article here. Also the “replacement TikTok” apps in India, where TikTok is banned, i.e. MX TakaTak and Moj. Also Telegram, which is worth watching, as it also features in the list of monthly active users (along with TikTok, of course). In terms of social apps, it was TikTok. In terms of video streaming apps, it was YouTube.

Reference: All data taken from the AppAnnie data released 19 January 2021 for end 2021 () and the late 2021 data released on 8 December 2021 available here.