Facebook, YouTube and Facebook Messenger are the top smartphones apps of 2015 with the highest average unique users.
Nielsen, a global measurement and information company, released data of top 10 smartphone apps of 2015 based on the data collected between January 2015 and October 2015.
Facebook, which is the biggest social media networking website, was on the top of the list and Nielsen recorded over 126 million average unique users per month. Nielsen reports that the growth of the app year-over-year was 8 percent.
In November 2015, Facebook confirmed it had more than 1.55 billion monthly active users (MAUs) as of Sept. 30, 2015, which is an increase of 14 percent year-over-year. Facebook also confirmed Mobile MAUs were 1.39 billion as of Sept. 30, 2015, which is an increase of 23 percent year-over-year.
The data released by Facebook reflects why the Facebook app is at the top position in Nielsen's measurement.
YouTube occupied the second position with in second with more than 97 million average unique users each month during the measurement period. The year-over-year growth for the YouTube app was 5 percent.
The Facebook Messenger app for smartphones had over 96 million average unique users every month.
At the fourth position was the Google Search app with over 95 million average unique users per month and 3 percent year-over-year growth followed by Google Play app with more than 89 million average unique users each month.
Google Maps had more than 87 million average unique users, Gmail app exceeded 75 million average unique users and Instagram app had over 55 million average unique users during the same term.
The ninth and the tenth positions in Nielsen's Top Smartphone Apps of 2015 were Apple Music app with more than 54 million average unique users and the Maps app by Apple with over 46 million unique average users per month.
"The apps with highest year-over-year change was Facebook Messenger with a 31% increase in users from 2014, and Apple Music, with a 26% growth," stated Nielsen.
Nielsen reported that smartphone penetration in the U.S. grew to 80 percent at the end of September 2015 from 78 percent at the beginning of this year.
Nielsen also reported figures about the top smartphone operating systems in the U.S. In Q3 2015, 53 percent of mobile device users in the U.S. were on Android 43 percent used iOS. Only 3 percent of the mobile device users in the U.S. accessed apps from handsets that were on Windows phone followed by 0.7 percent on a BlackBerry smartphone. Only a small number of handsets are launched every year that run on Windows phone. BlackBerry has also launched its first Android-powered smartphone - BlackBerry Priv - this year, which suggest why these operating systems are not very popular in the market.
High percentage of Android-powered users in the U.S. is not a surprise as many smartphone makers like Samsung, LG, HTC, Huawei and more use Android operating system on their handsets ranging from entry-level to top-end.
However, only a handful of Apple devices run on iOS but the Apple operating system is still the second-most popular operating system in the U.S., which shows the high penetration of iPhones in the country.
