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You might be surprised by which apps enjoyed the fastest growth last year

New figures revealing the mobile apps with the highest year-on-year growth may have you reconsidering what you think you know about the hottest apps around.
By
March 31, 2016
Sloth

We all know about those Android apps that “take off”: the ones that enjoy immense success, sometimes overnight, and post staggeringly large install numbers. They fuel the dreams of budding Android developers and keep our man Joe Hindy busy day in, day out. But new figures revealing the mobile apps with the highest year-on-year growth may have you reconsidering what you think you know about the hottest apps around.

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Statista has released new data showing the mobile apps in the U.S. with the fastest increase in visitor growth between December 2014 and December 2015. The app in first place grew by an unbelievable 931%! The app that took the top spot? None other than the super fun GIF Keyboard. With this kind of growth it might make a little more sense to know that Google is reportedly making a keyboard for iOS devices, complete with GIFs.

Fastest mobile app growth 2015

Not far behind in second place, with 920% visitor growth, was Lowe’s. That’s right, Lowe’s. I didn’t even know Lowe’s had an Android app. Given Lowe’s popularity, it should probably come as no surprise that The Home Depot also made the list, with 541% growth year-on-year. Home renovation aside, there are also some apps on the list you might have expected to find there – Imgur, Airbnb, OneDrive – but I can guarantee you wouldn’t have guessed more than a couple on the list.

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Of course, relative popularity and actual popularity are not the same thing. If your app has 50 installs and that number explodes by 1000% it still only means 500 installs. Nevertheless, the top apps on this list have install figures in the millions. Nowhere near the reach of the billion install club, which still only counts a dozen Google and Facebook-owned Android apps, but still worthy enough install rates to be both relatively popular and actually popular.

How many of these apps do you have on your phone? How many would you have guessed correctly?