What killer applications have emerged in the mobile Internet in the past decade?

If Apple and Google hadn't added an app store to their own mobile phone systems, ten years later, it would probably not be mobile apps like WeChat, Taobao or Didi that determine our social relationships, consumption habits and travel methods.

For mobile phones, a consumer electronic product, its intelligence is also closely related to a large number of mobile applications. Without them, the devices in our hands are more like a communication tool, which obviously will not bring any changes to your lifestyle, or even make you addicted for dozens of hours a day.

As 2019 is coming to an end, AppAnnie released a new market report, counting the mobile apps with the highest downloads and revenue in the past 10 years.

To some extent, they can be regarded as "killer apps" born in the era of mobile Internet.

Let’s first look at the top ten list of downloads. Facebook alone occupies the first four positions, and Facebook and Facebook Messenger are also the most downloaded mobile applications in the past 10 years.

As for Instagram and WhatsApp, although they were not created by Facebook, they were both sold to Zuckerberg in 2012 and 2014 respectively, and both became part of Facebook's social matrix.

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Apart from Facebook, the next six apps are from different companies, most of which are familiar faces to us, including two Chinese apps, namely Tik Tok and UC Browser.

The influence of social applications can also be seen from this list. After all, whether it is the huge social network formed by Facebook, or applications based on text, pictures or short videos such as Snapchat, Tik Tok or Twitter, they are essentially social in nature and carry our connections with various social circles of acquaintances and strangers.

In addition to the download volume list, AppAnnie also shows another "revenue ranking", which is simply the apps that make the most money.

Here, the style of the entire application category has also changed from social to video streaming and music. Netflix and Spotify are already the world's largest video streaming and online music services. In China, a considerable number of users have developed the habit of paying to watch TV series on Tencent Video and iQiyi.

The more interesting Tinder is ranked second. It is actually a dating app. According to past financial reports, a large part of the revenue of this app comes from paid membership services. It seems that modern young people are willing to spend money to make friends.

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Another non-video and entertainment application is Line, which ranks fifth on the revenue list. Many people think that Line is just a social application, but in fact, it has a lot of businesses related to e-commerce, finance, life services, etc. In addition, it can sell emoticons and develop games based on IP. It can be said that it is currently the social application that is best at doing peripheral business.

In addition to mobile applications, we cannot ignore the influence of mobile games.

In the mobile game rankings listed by AppAnnie, the one with the highest download volume is a bit surprising. It is not "Fruit Ninja", "Talking Tom Cat", or "Temple Run", but "Subway Surfers".

As for the gameplay of this game, it doesn’t seem to have much to offer. As a game released in 2012, the gameplay of Subway Surfers is very similar to Temple Run, where you control the character to continuously cross various obstacles, collect coins, and ultimately get a higher score, which is also the design benchmark for most parkour games.

On the other hand, the rise of touch screen interaction on smartphones has also indirectly promoted parkour games. After all, the operation of such games only requires sliding up, down, left, and right, which is more natural than using buttons directly. In addition to the No. 1 Subway Surfers, games like Temple Run 2 and Despicable Me Run also belong to parkour gameplay, ranking 3rd and 8th respectively.

In May this year, Kiloo, the developer of "Subway Surfers", said that the cumulative downloads of this game have exceeded 2.5 billion times; and AppAnnie also stated that due to the strong performance of "Subway Surfers" in India (downloads in India accounted for 15% of its total downloads), it also jumped to the first place in the overall download list.

However, if we change to the revenue list, the game ranked first becomes Supercell's "Clash of Clans". Like "Candy Clash", "Clash of Clans" also occupies a position in the download list. This kind of "global influence and money-making" game is rare.

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At the same time, Supercell is the only company that can occupy two positions on the mobile game revenue list. In addition to "Clash of Clans", the other one is "Clash Royale" which ranks tenth. They have their own innovations in gameplay, and of course it is also related to Supercell's long-term stable operation.

Other works on the revenue list are also "pay-to-win game representatives" in each region. For example, "Monster Strike", "Puzzle & Dragons" and "Fate/Grand Order" are very popular in Japan, while "Honor of Kings" and "Fantasy Westward Journey" are frequent visitors to the revenue list in China. There is also "Game of War - Fire Age" which has a great influence in Europe and the United States. Although they were launched relatively early, they are still the first choice for most mobile phone users to kill time.

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After ten years, these applications born from the mobile Internet have basically solved our needs in various fields. It is foreseeable that this smart phone ecosystem formed by various applications will continue for a long time, unless some new hardware form can completely revolutionize our living habits or create new rigid needs.

On the other hand, the stability of the structure also means that the opportunities for new applications to appear are becoming fewer and fewer, especially in areas such as social networking and audio and video, which are basically monopolized by a few large companies, and people have long formed an inseparable connection with the services behind these applications.

I hope we can see other new faces in the next decade.