Apple and Google apps are absolutely dominating the competition – here’s why

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.

There is a lot of discussion going on regarding Big Tech and the power it can hold over many things. One of the latest examples of this is how Apple and Google’s own pre-installed apps typically dominate the competition when it comes to usage.

The problem is that neither Apple nor Google really disclose the number of users to things like Apple’s Messages so getting firm “proof” of this can be difficult. Now, a new study (commissioned by Facebook – surprise, surprise) from research firm Comscore, and shared with The Verge, tries to make sense of it all.

As The Verge notes, the timing here is anything but random, as lawmakers are currently reviewing a new set of bills, some of which look at Apple and Google’s preferential treatment of its own apps, making competition difficult.

Take a look at the top 20 apps on both iOS and Android

As you can see, on their respective platforms, Apple and Google-owned apps dominate app usage, according to Comscore. To get these stats, Comscore tells The Verge it used data it gathers from apps and websites, and also through a 4,000 person survey regarding default apps people used in November of 2020.

The nitty-gritty here is that 75% of the most-used apps on iOS were made by Apple, with Google-owned up apps making up 60% of the top 20 Android apps.

According to The Verge, Apple doesn’t agree with the findings, stating, “his Facebook-financed survey from December 2020 was narrowly tailored to give the false impression that there’s little competition on the App Store.”

While the results of this study might have some flaws due to how Apple and Google keep some of their usage numbers close to the chest, it still paints a picture of how much power these companies hold when it comes to apps being used on a daily basis.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Apple might be ramping up the screen size on future iPads
• Google Maps’ new Insights tool keeps up with your travel patterns
• Digital vaccination cards are coming to Android soon thanks to Google’s Passes API
• You can now share tweets to Instagram Stories on iOS – here’s how