The Nations Favourite Apps

The UK is now a smartphone country, with 4 out of 5 adults having this almost essential gadget. If I said smartphones are taking over our lives would you think I was being alarmist? Well, when the fear of missing out or FOMO, is making a third of us check our phones in the middle of the night and with the overuse of smartphones causing arguments in households up and down the country then maybe I'm not.

However, smartphones are a relatively new gadget, being only around for the last 10 years and humans have a tendency to overuse their newest technology, so maybe it will all settle down over the next few years.



But it's not all bad news. Smartphones are a brilliant way to organise our daily lives, entertain and educate ourselves, and keep up with our friends through social apps such as Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. Many smartphones these days have brilliant cameras too, letting us document our daily lives in an easy and fun way.  You can even use your smartphone for streaming open source media that you can't get in your country.

So what are the most popular apps you may wonder? Carphone Warehouse have analysed a database of over 300 app preferences to bring us an 'App Map' of the UK.

There are no surprises in the most popular apps, but there are in the regional choices. 



As you can see the most popular apps above in the database were Facebook, Google search, YouTube and Facebook messenger, with What's App, Gmail and Twitter not far behind. Nothing surprising there. However, when you look at the regional choices and what the different sexes choose, things do differ.



From the database, women appear to love shopping apps, with Timehop a memory app being the number 1 choice and Goodreads a book app being another choice. The speed of the Internet is obviously of concern to men with Wi-Fi Analyzer and FastConnect being popular, with a password remembering app, a plane tracking app and Steam, the popular gaming app coming up the rear. In the top thirty apps for women, diet and fitness apps are prominent such as Fitbit while men like their sports apps such as Sky Sports.



Regionally things differ too and with income. High earners like µTorrent the download app plus extras like a vpn for torrenting, to help them get the entertainment they would like to watch pre-downloaded so they can watch whenever and wherever they choose, whilst lower income users like Goodreads to help them find their next book. 

Our apps change with age as well, the 18-24 age group like Buzzfeed, Snapchat, and Spotify while the over 50s like Marks and Spencer and the National Trust! It's surprising that my age group, 45-54 like gaming, but it's not shoot-em-ups, more like Candy Crush and Farm Heroes. 





In our household, these are our favourite apps below.

Mellissa 46
Amazon, TripAdvisor, Paypal, Facebook, Twitter and Trivago

Marcus 49
BBC News, Instagram, Twitter, Spotify and Sonos

Jake 20
YouTube, Apple Music, Twitter, Netflix, and Notes

I am a shopper, a traveller and love social apps, whilst Marcus is into his music and Instagram. Jake is a big lover of films, music and Youtube and keeps himself organised with notes.

What are your favourite apps? Do you like social media apps or are you more of a gamer, or are news apps your favourite or TV, video or film apps? Let me know.

*PR collaboration

12 comments

  1. Im surprised to see instagram so low. For me. the apps I use on a daily basis the most is Facebook, Facebook Messenger and Twitter. Then I would use gmail next and then Instagram. I don't even use youtube so surprised to see that so high up.

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    1. YouTube is very popular though we watch it almost every day.

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  2. Oooh this is actually really interesting and like the commenter above me, I am also surprised to see Instagram so low! The apps I use daily are all the social networking ones - so FB, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram! I rarely use games or shopping apps as oddly I just find it easier to pop onto the mobile site!

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  3. It kind of surprises me that Facebook is higher than Google Search to be honest. I know I use my phone mainly for shopping, banking and social apps x

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    1. I would have thought Google would have been higher than Facebook too.

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  4. I did not expect Twitter to have fallen so far... Nor Instagram! Facebook and Google Search aren't a surprise though

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  5. I think some of these results are quite surprising. Mine would be Readly, Feedly, Kindle, FB and Instagram. I guess we all use our phones for different things.

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  6. My favourite apps are all social media ones - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and whatsapp. Tx

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  7. This is really fascinating actually. I'm quite surprised that Instagram is so low. I guess it goes to show that we tend to surround ourselves with like minded people!

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    1. I think we do. As bloggers we use Instagram a lot but perhaps certain age groups or certain types of people wouldn't use it. Is Instagram as popular with men for example?

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  8. Good to see that BBC news is on the most popular apps. I like instagram and social media or photo editing apps. I had Candy Crush but I got a bit addicted so I had to delete it!

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  9. No shock that Instagram is last, it's shit recently! xo

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