The German app market is one of the largest in Europe and has seen consistent growth over the years, with more of the population switching to mobile apps for all sorts of tasks.
Germany was the second most lucrative app market in Europe behind the UK and had the tenth-largest smartphone user population in the world. It was slow to adopt mobile in the 2010s in comparison to other countries in West Europe, with a large installed PC market.
This reserved behaviour has remained in the amount of time Germans spend on the internet - around five and half hours - which is low in comparison to the rest of Europe.
Video streaming apps and mobile games are popular in Germany. TikTok and YouTube both have broad appeal in the country, and older game titles such as Candy Crush Saga, Gardenscapes and Subway Surfers are still regularly played. WhatsApp and Telegram are the two most popular communications platforms in the country.
Germany has particularly strict hate speech laws which impact any apps operating in the country, especially social networks. Social media platforms are required to remove incendiary material, but a 2021 follow-up law intended to strengthen the rules further was found to violate EU law. Platforms remain obliged to monitor content, and X has faced legal action after hate speech and anti-Semitic rhetoric was allegedly not removed from the website within the required period.
The German government has tried to push more users to mobile, through prescribed courses of mobile therapy for any citizen with public health insurance. It has also digitized more of its services, with a mobile-first mantra to get more users to switch from PC to mobile.
We have collected data and statistics on the German mobile app market. Read on below to find out more.
Key Germany App Market Statistics
- The German app market earned $4.9 billion revenue last year, a 19.5% increase on the previous year
- The average German spent $71.5 on apps in 2024, an increase of $10 on 2023
- Close to 70 million Germans own a smartphone and access apps
- TikTok was the top grossing app in Germany in 2024, with $155 million revenue
- There were 2.4 billion apps downloaded in Germany in 2024, a slight increase on the previous year
- The average German downloaded 35 apps in 2024
- Temu was the most downloaded app in Germany in 2024, with 12 million downloads
- Germans spent close to five hours 30 minutes on the internet in 2024
- About 52% of all internet consumption in Germany was performed on mobile
- The average cellular speed in Germany was 58Mbps, with a lot of customers still using 4G LTE
