2026 Guide to App Retention by Rates (with Metrics, Statistics, & Tips)

Stats show that app users in the US, on average, uninstall 48% of the apps they install on their phones after 30 days. This is why mobile app teams must shift their focus to improve retention to set themselves up for long-term success.

The truth is that user acquisition isn't enough to secure your mobile app's long-term growth. Product managers must also have a strategy to keep users engaged and hungry for more to minimize churn.

The best way to improve retention is to look at the trends and stats of what's happening in your niche and adapt your product to meet market demand. In this article, you'll learn what app retention is, how to measure it, and what retention benchmarks look like for real apps across devices, industries, and countries.

What Is Mobile App Retention?

Mobile app retention measures the percentage of people who continue using your app after the initial installation. It matters because user acquisition isn't cheap. In practice, it answers the most uncomfortable question product teams and marketers face: Do users actually use our product after installing it?

When retention is high, it means the app is delivering value. Your audience will have a higher average lifetime value, refer friends, and tolerate the occasional bug.

When it's low, you'll miss out on potential revenue, while losing time and money investigating why users churn and how to keep them.

How Do You Measure App Retention?

You measure retention by dividing the number of users at the end of a given period by those active at the start of it. It's often tracked in time-based snapshots: Day 1, Day 7, and Day 30. For instance, if you have four users at the start of the month but only one at the end, you have a 25% 30-day retention rate.

Expectations for app retention rates vary significantly across categories.

A social app might expect a Day 1 rate of 30% or more, while a niche utility tool, like a mobile PDF scanner, might hover in the single digits. That doesn't necessarily mean the PDF scanner is failing; it's just not the sort of app people open every day.

What's the Average Retention Rate by Industry?

Not sure how your mobile app retention rate holds up to the competition? Here's what the average retention rate for mobile apps looks like across different industries, so you can have an idea of where your product stands:

When you look at mobile app benchmarks, the drop-off is steep and immediate. On average, only 28.29% of users come back the very next day after installing an app. By the end of the first week, that number falls to 17.86%, and by Day 30, you're typically left with just 7.88% still active.

What these numbers really highlight is how quickly the initial curiosity fades: 

• Day 1 retention shows whether onboarding and the first experience clicked. 

• Day 7 indicates whether the app is sticky enough to become a habit. 

• Day 30 shows whether it's delivering sustained value.

What's the Most Popular App Store Category?

Games dominate the largest share of available apps in the iOS App Store, followed closely by business and utility categories.

App Retention Benchmarks You Should Know in 2026

Here are some key app retention benchmarks and related data that product managers should know in 2026: 

Overall Retention Stats

How Do Retention Gains Compare Between Android and iOS?

The gap between which apps people engage with on iOS and Android is huge.

On Android, the biggest retention gains went to apps that tap into core human behaviors, specifically:

• Dating (+35% YoY)

• Education (+29% YoY)

• Social Media (+23% YoY)

The picture shifts dramatically when it comes to iOS platforms, with the following lifestyle categories driving more user retention:

• News & Magazines (+24% YoY)

• Health & Fitness (+22% YoY)

• Photo & Video (+20% YoY)

Why Do Users Uninstall Apps?

The three most common reasons users uninstall an app are: freeing up storage space, feeling overwhelmed by too many ads, and having never opened the app to begin with. The least common reason was an absence of new features or content. [The Mobile Consumer 2023]

What Are the Apps with the Highest Monthly Active Users (MAU)?

The app with the most MAU is Facebook, with over 3 billion active users. YouTube sits next at 2.5 billion users and Instagram at 2 billion users. Meta's whole portfolio, namely, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, together hit over 7 billion monthly users. [Statista, 2025]

What Are the Most Popular App Subgenres?

Social Media (part of Social), Film & Television Streaming (part of Media & Entertainment), and Shopping (General) (part of Shopping) are the most popular subgenres by downloads. They all managed to post modest but positive year-over-year growth at the global level.

Examining total time spent in the app by subgenre, Social Media is the clear winner, with Social Messaging in a distant second. Users spent nearly 2.4 trillion hours across these apps. That's roughly 6.6 billion hours per day or 50 minutes per person on Earth. [State of Mobile 2024]

What Improves Retention Rates

Do you have the right game plan for improving your mobile app engagement? Certain strategies and tactics have a significant impact on app retention. Owned media sources (such as push notifications, SMS, and email) and AI-powered personalization are leading the way:

• Earlier research has shown that 87% of customers are willing to spend more for personalization. In an age of deeper AI integration, 61% of consumers expect it to provide deeper personalization. On the business side, 91% of CX leaders experienced with AI tools say that AI can do this well. [CX Trends 2022, CX Trends 2025]

• App users who receive even a single push notification within the first 90 days are three times more likely to stick around than those who don't. [Mobile Push Notification Benchmarks 2023]

• Moving from a three-star rating to a four-star rating can increase conversions by 89% [Mobile Consumer Engagement Report 2022]

Customer Needs That Impact Retention

Mobile app users expect more from companies. Users demand the best user experience possible and won't stick around if you can't provide them with it.

• About 63% of people admit they would jump to a competitor after just one poor interaction, and that number has climbed 9% since last year. [CX Trends 2025]

• "66% of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations" [State of the Connected Customer 2021]

• 66% of customers switched to a brand due to better deals, while 58% of them switched for better product quality [State of the Connected Customer 2022]

Industry-Based Stats in 2026

Next, let's dive deeper to see how specific verticals are doing in terms of app retention, downloads, revenue, and user sessions:

Marketplace App Retention Stats

• Marketplace apps were the stickiest eCommerce segment in 2024, with one in every four users coming back the next day. [Mobile App Trends 2025]

• Between 2023 and 2024, Day 1 retention rates for marketplace apps dropped from 27% to 25%, Day 7 rates went from 16% to 15%, and Day 30 rates dipped from 9% to 8%. [Mobile App Trends 2025]

• Global median cost-per-install (CPI) crept up by $0.40 as a whole during the period of 2023 to 2024, although marketplace and classified apps reduced their CPI by $0.46. [Mobile App Trends 2025]

• Mobile retail is an international market. Temu (China), SHEIN (China), and Meesho (India) are the top three downloaded apps in this category worldwide. Amazon (US), Shopee (Singapore), and Temu lead in MAU. [State of Mobile 2024]

Gaming App Retention Stats

• Games, as a whole, saw retention decrease from 28% to 27% for Day 1 between 2023 and 2024. Day 7 (13%) and Day 30 (5%) rates remained the same. [Mobile App Trends 2025] 

• Despite an increase in gaming app installs, time spent in each session declined around the world in the same period. [Mobile App Trends 2025]

• The three most popular geolocation titles captured 88.5% of the subgenre's in-app purchase (IAP) revenue. Meanwhile, Strategy, RPG, and Arcade show a much wider spread of spend, which suggests players are more willing to try and stick with multiple titles. [State of Mobile 2024]

• Shooter and Strategy genres dominated global time spent, with the success of titles like Garena Free Fire and Brawl Stars. These two titles together accounted for nearly a quarter of all global time spent. [State of Mobile 2024]

• More than 80% of worldwide IAP revenue comes from titles that are over two years old. With the Casino and Tabletop genres, established games reach 98.4% and 97.1% of IAP, respectively. [State of Mobile 2024]

• Downloads ballooned worldwide for competitive subgenres of Shooter and Strategy games, while they deflated for Arcade and Lifestyle categories. [State of Mobile 2024]

• The Coin Looter subgenre of Casino games outpaced everyone in IAP revenue growth, particularly the RPG genre as a whole, which saw losses across the board. [State of Mobile 2024]

Fintech App Retention Stats

• Fintech apps saw a slight dip in Day 1 retention rates by 1% from the previous year, although Day 7 and Day 30 remained the same. [Mobile App Trends 2025]

• This app type saw 24% growth in user sessions in 2024, with crypto apps being the main driver. Europe experienced the biggest growth, increasing by 63%. [Mobile App Trends 2025]

• Another study showed that worldwide session lengths in crypto apps rose 37% YoY, with steady gains every quarter. Unsurprisingly, the trend still tracks closely with Bitcoin's price movement, which remains an anchor of the ecosystem. [State of Mobile 2024]

• In 2024, Germany has been the real standout with crypto app usage exploding by 91% YoY growth. Indonesia (54%), Brazil (47%), and France (47%) follow behind. [State of Mobile 2024]

• Finance apps surpassed 7 billion downloads in 2024. [State of Mobile 2024]

• Cash App, PayPal, and Venmo lead in the US market. [State of Mobile 2024]

• Consumer banking grew, albeit more slowly at 3% YoY, with stronger growth in certain regions, like Turkey and Brazil. [State of Mobile 2024]

• In 2024, time spent in finance apps grew 16.9% YoY. [State of Mobile 2024]

Health and Fitness App Retention Stats

• The Netherlands has the highest average Day 1 retention rate (24.42%), with Egypt at the lowest (11.95%), but Sweden leads in Day 30 retention rates (5.95%), far ahead of Bangladesh at the bottom (0.82%). [App Uninstall Report 2025].

• The most popular subgenre by downloads is Gyms and Fitness, with more than double the downloads of Medical Tracking in the second place position. Telehealth is slightly more popular than Nutrition and Diet, as well as Beauty Services and Spas, which are in the last place positions. [State of Mobile 2024]

• While not as popular as other subgenres, telehealth apps were still among the top for MAU in ten different countries, including the USA, Brazil, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Germany. 12 countries had these apps in their top downloads charts. [State of Mobile 2024]

• Japan was the only country surveyed with a top-ranking telehealth app for IAP revenue, a telehealth consulting platform called AskDoctors. [State of Mobile 2024]

• Health Tracker hit 10 million MAUs in its first 5 months, and it's been consistently holding above 12 million ever since. [State of Mobile 2024]

• In the US, Sweatcoin, an app that rewards its users for exercising, remains the fitness tracking app with the most monthly active users. But new, similar rewards-based apps are catching up fast: CashWalk's MAU climbed 42% year over year, while WeWard exploded with a 609% increase. [State of Mobile 2024]

• On the Android platform, CashWalk and Sweatcoin gain a spot as the fitness apps accounting for the all-time high retention rate in the United States. CashWalk retains 31% of users after 30 days, while Sweatcoin holds onto 20%. [State of Mobile 2024]

Video Streaming App Retention Stats

• The Disney+, Hulu, and Max bundle is outpacing Netflix when it comes to retention, reflecting how packaging can shape user behavior. [The Wall Street Journal]

• In Q1 2025, all US streaming giants saw a sudden rise in user churn. The industry-wide monthly churn rate is 5.5%, which is more than double the 2% reported back in 2019. [BroadbandTV 2025]

• Nearly a quarter of US streamers (23%) have unsubscribed from three or more services within a two-year period, although 41% sign up again at some point. [BroadbandTV 2025]

• Netflix, JioCinema, Amazon Prime Video, Max, and DramaBox dominate global downloads. [State of Mobile 2024]

• Streaming app downloads have shown a steady YoY growth since 2021, reaching 3.4 billion globally in 2024. [State of Mobile 2024]

• IAP revenue is in a bright spot, hitting $12 billion in 2024 across markets. This is nearly double the $6.35 billion spent in 2021. [State of Mobile 2024]

• With a few exceptions, total hours spent in streaming apps have remained the same or declined for nearly every market each year since 2021. [State of Mobile 2024]

• India, home of JioCinema, saw a sharp decline in total in-app hours in 2024 after three years of growth. In Vietnam, 2024's total hours are less than half of what it was in 2021, but IAP revenue more than doubled in the same timeframe. [State of Mobile 2024]

Value Is Your Secret Weapon in the Fight for Retention

The benchmarks above paint a different picture depending on the type of product you're building, but there are some underlying themes: users are looking for the most value they can get from an app with the fewest tradeoffs.

Streaming app bundles, health apps that reward exercise, marketplace giants offering deep discounts and low-cost shipping, gaming apps that users have already poured time and money into, and cryptocurrency apps that provide an opportunity for users to make quick investments all sit atop their respective genres in retention and other metrics.

That doesn't mean your app can't retain and engage users like the rest of them.

You can increase retention by bringing awareness to your app's value early on, avoiding overloading phones with ads or large file sizes, and sticking to tried-and-true engagement strategies with modern twists (like AI-powered personalization).