Mobile analytics firm Distimo has released its September report detailing the most popular mobile applications of Q3 2010. The report covers the top apps, both free and paid, for the iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android, Nokia (Ovi), Palm’s webOS and Windows Phone platforms.
Below are the findings.
Keep in mind that the lists below aren’t ranking the top applications overall for these platforms – it’s a look at what’s most popular right now, for Q3 2010.
The Most Popular Free Applications
- iBooks (iPad)
- Type n’ Talk (iPhone)
- Blackberry Messenger (Blackberry App World)
- Pandora Radio (Google Android Market)
- ZumZum (Nokia Ovi Store)
- Facebook (Palm App Catalog)
- Microsoft My Phone (Windows Marketplace for Mobile)
The Most Popular Paid Applications
- Pages (iPad)
- Angry Birds (iPhone)
- BeBuzz – LED Colors and Audible Reminders (Blackberry App World)
- Beautiful Widgets (Google Android Market)
- ToonWarz (Nokia Ovi Store)
- mCraig – Mobile Craigslist Browser (Palm App Catalog)
- Meon (Windows Marketplace for Mobile)
The report also lists the top 10 apps by platform for this quarter, both free and paid. You can read through complete lists of those apps here.
Highlights: The Popularity of Games and Top App Publishers
Some of the highlights from this report include the popularity of games by platform and stats on the top publishers.
Games
Distimo found, for example, the iTunes App Store for iPhone had the most games (55% free, 55% paid) among its top 100 most popular applications. Windows Marketplace for Mobile had the second most games (23% free, 45% paid) in the top 100 followed by the iTunes App Store for iPad (25% free, 40% paid). There is only one game among the top ten most popular free applications for the iPad (Real Solitaire Free for iPad) compared with four on the iPhone’s list.
Games are least popular on Blackberry (12.5% free, 28% paid) and Palm devices (33% free, 16% paid).
Top Publishers & Apps
- RIM: On the Blackberry top ten list of free applications, Research in Motion (RIM) publishes four of the top ten apps including Blackberry Messenger, Blackberry App World itself and apps for Facebook and Twitter. Microsoft and Palm are also the publishers of the popular Facebook applications in their own stores. IM & social networking applications are, in general, popular free apps for Blackberry, with four slots in the top ten list. However, none in that category made its top ten paid apps list.
- Lupis Labs Software is a top publisher for Android this quarter, with its Robo Defense app among the top ten most popular free and paid applications (#7 and #1 spots, respectively). Both versions of the app have over 250,000 downloads.
- The Angry Birds game ranks well on many platforms including the iTunes App Store, Nokia Ovi Store and Palm App Catalog. It’s the second-most popular paid iPad app in iTunes, even though its price is high.
- Polarbit, Gameloft and I-Play are popular publishers on Nokia’s Ovi Platfrom each having 2-3 apps in the top ten paid apps list.
- Apple: iBooks has ranked between #1 and #10 slots during the July – September time period.
- Netflix is popular on the iPhone, iPad, Nokia Ovi and Windows Mobile platforms. Netflix on the iPhone ranked between #1 and #10 63% of the days it was ranked.The Netflix Queue Manger ranks #4 on the free apps list for Nokia and the Mobile Manager for Netflix is #4 on Windows Mobile’s top ten free apps list.
- WeatherBug is also popular on many platforms, with both a paid app (#8) and free app (#5) on the Windows Mobile top ten lists and a #2 app on Google Android.
- Shazam Encore is #7 on Windows Mobile and #4 on Blackberry.
On Android, games and apps were ranked separately because Google splits them up in its app store. Distimo found that there was a greater diversity of categories in the top ten free apps list and in the top ten paid apps list, apps from the “Tools” and “News & Weather” categories did well as did emulators, like the GBA Emulator GameBoid and the SNES Emulator SNesoid.
You can read through additional findings in more detail here.
