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Facebook continues to dominate the internet as it was number 1 on Nielsen's newly released study on the most popular U.S. smartphone apps in 2015. The smartphone app of Facebook had an estimated 126.7 million users, explaining why it topped the survey.
In second place was YouTube with 97.6 million users, while Facebook Messenger came in third with 96.4 million users. Also in the top 10 are 4th placer Google Search (95.4 million), 5th placer Google Play (89.7 million), 6th placer Google Maps (87.8 million), 7th placer Gmail (75.1 million), 8th placer Instagram (55.4 million), 9th placer Apple Music (54.6 million) and 10th placer Apple Maps (46.4 million), reports Seeking Alpha.
There are about 1.8 billion smartphone users in the world, with 52.6 percent using phones that run on Android OS and 42.7 percent of iOS. But smartphone penetration grew by only 2 percent from 78 percent in 2014 to 80 percent in 2015.
Nielsen notes that the apps with the biggest jump in users is Facebook Messenger which increased 31 percent, followed by Apple Music with 26 percent growth.
To crunch those numbers, Nielsen installed its Electronic Mobile Measurement on panelists' smartphones with the prior permission of the gadget owner. It had about 9,000 panelists who are at least 18 years old and users of either Android or iOS phones.
These panelists were recruited online in English. But also included are panelists from various racial backgrounds such as African-American, Asian-American, Native American and Alaskan Native.
Nielsen based its data on monthly surveys of more than 30,000 mobile phone subscribers aged 13 and above from the U.S.
