Adjust this week released its Mobile App Trends: 2026 Edition, a comprehensive benchmarking report drawing on aggregated, anonymized data from thousands of apps tracked by the measurement company between January 2024 and January 2026. Published on February 18, 2026, by Thalia Kemp, Senior Marketing Manager at Adjust, the report covers three core verticals – gaming, e-commerce, and finance – across six regions: APAC, Europe, LATAM, MENA, North America, and a global aggregate. It includes contributions from Google Ads, Snap for Business, TikTok for Business, Sensor Tower, Roku, and Alison.ai.
The headline figures paint a picture of an app economy that is growing in engagement even where raw install numbers have plateaued. According to Adjust data, app installs climbed 10% year-over-year globally in 2025, while sessions rose 7%. Both figures represent an acceleration from 2024’s growth rates of 8% and 2% respectively. February 2025 marked the calendar low for installs at 13% below the yearly average, before a recovery that ended December at 8% above average.
The overall app economy context is substantial. According to the report, there were more than 112.1 billion app downloads in 2025, with an estimated 5.8 billion unique smartphone users globally. Consumer spending rose 10.6% year-over-year to $167 billion. Looking further ahead, the global market is projected to exceed $1.23 trillion by 2035, and mobile technologies are forecast to generate 8.4% of global GDP by 2030.
ATT opt-in rates continue their upward trajectory
One of the more technically significant findings in the report concerns App Tracking Transparency (ATT) opt-in rates among iOS users who permit tracking requests. The industry average rose from 35% in Q1 2025 to 38% in Q1 2026. This is a meaningful shift for mobile marketers, given the disruption ATT caused when Apple introduced it in April 2021 – a moment PPC Land covered as initial opt-in rates sat between 11% and 15% before the gradual climb now documented in Adjust’s data.
Gaming led all categories with a 39% opt-in rate. Entertainment, finance, lifestyle, and social apps all improved year-over-year. The most dramatic gain was recorded by publications, which rose from 18% to 26%. E-commerce and shopping bucked the trend, slipping from 35% to 34%. Regulatory pressure around ATT has intensified over the same period, with France imposing a €150 million fine on Apple in March 2025 and Italy following with €98.6 million in December 2025.
According to Deborah Bennett, Head of App Ads, Commercialization, Privacy & Measurement at Google Ads: “In 2026, the complexity of mobile journeys will demand a shift from reporting performance to enabling decisions. As users move fluidly across apps, web, and commerce environments, AI-powered measurement will be essential to connecting intent with outcomes, helping marketers optimize for value across increasingly non-linear paths.”
Gaming: hyper casual dominates installs, CPI climbs sharply
The gaming vertical reveals a category under pressure on cost but still showing strong engagement signals. Hyper casual games again accounted for the largest share of gaming app installs globally in 2025, reaching 29.1% – up from 27% the prior year. Their session contribution, while smaller at 15.3%, grew substantially, rising 31% year-over-year even as installs grew only 4%. The divergence indicates that hyper casual developers are adding retention mechanics to extract more revenue per user.
Casual games posted 19% install growth alongside a 37% session boost. Strategy games showed the sharpest session increase at 57% despite flat install numbers, suggesting a core of highly engaged repeat players. Casino and slots saw install growth of 22% and 46% respectively but session declines of 5% each – a churn signal that the report flags as a challenge to address.
Gaming CPI rose globally to $0.56 in 2025, up 30% from the prior year. The most expensive subverticals were slots at $4.47, idle RPG at $3.19, and strategy at $1.03. The global paid/organic ratio for gaming jumped from 2.07 to 3.33, a 61% increase. Casino (+223% to 11.05), casual (+139% to 7.16), and slots (+447% to 5.63) led that climb. LATAM showed the highest regional reliance on paid acquisition with a ratio of 4.23. A previous PPC Land article on the Adjust and Google Ads web-to-app handbook explored how the growing complexity of acquisition funnels is pushing marketers toward cross-channel measurement to understand where installs are actually coming from.
Gaming session lengths shortened globally to 30 minutes in 2025, down from 30.43 minutes. APAC maintained the longest sessions at 33.14 minutes. Strategy game sessions averaged 37.51 minutes and grew 18%, while casual games rose 15% to 25.92 minutes. Day 1 retention across all games remained flat at 27%, day 7 at 13%, day 14 at 8%, and day 30 at 5%.
Gaming apps averaged 5.3 advertising partners in 2025, down from 6. That consolidation reflects an industry narrowing its network mix toward partners that deliver users with demonstrable long-term value. Eight of the top 10 mobile games in 2025 each generated more than $1 billion in player spending, and global mobile gamers reached nearly 3 billion people – more than 80% of the global gaming population, according to Sensor Tower data cited in the report.
Regional breakdown showed MENA as the only region to post gaming install growth at 2%, with a 7% sessions increase. Europe and LATAM both recorded install declines of 7% and 9%. North America saw installs drop 5% and sessions decline 2%.
E-commerce: sessions hold as installs retreat
Global e-commerce app installs fell 10% year-over-year in 2025, while sessions increased 5%. The pattern – fewer downloads, more use from existing users – runs through the e-commerce data consistently. The install decline was sharpest in February at 8% below average, but a Q4 recovery brought November and December 6% and 4% above average. PPC Land reported on a similar dynamic in August 2025, when Adjust’s Shopping App Insights Report for H1 2025 showed installs down 14% even as sessions grew.
LATAM was the standout performer in 2025 across the full year, with 17% install growth and a 30% session increase. APAC grew installs 7% while sessions remained essentially flat at -0.7%. Europe presented a split picture: installs fell 22% while sessions edged 6% higher. MENA and North America posted declines on both metrics.
Average e-commerce session length fell from 10.04 minutes in 2024 to 9.6 minutes in 2025. APAC dropped from 9.42 to 9.14 minutes, Europe from 10.87 to 10.53, and MENA from 9.56 to 8.61. The cost per install for e-commerce apps globally declined marginally from $1.00 to $0.98. At the subvertical level, deal discovery CPI surged from $1.44 to $2.26, while marketplace and classifieds dropped from $0.99 to $0.88 and shopping eased from $0.93 to $0.91. In APAC, CPI fell sharply from $1.27 to $0.68; in North America it declined from $2.61 to $2.49. Europe moved in the opposite direction, from $1.83 to $2.25.
Global e-commerce downloads reached 6.35 billion in 2025, up from 4.36 billion in 2019 – growth of more than 45% over that period. The top shopping app globally by downloads in 2025 was Temu, followed by SHEIN, Amazon, Meesho, and Shopee. The global live commerce market is expected to reach $2.47 trillion by 2033, according to third-party estimates cited in the report.
The global median paid/organic ratio for e-commerce apps increased from 0.48 to 0.54. MENA showed the biggest shift, up 16% to 0.63. Despite growing paid reliance, e-commerce apps worked with fewer partners on average – down to 6.3 – suggesting advertisers are concentrating budgets on a smaller set of networks.
According to Ozge Gulerman, Head of Marketing Science at Snap for Business: “As paid media becomes more competitive, brands need to strategically invest in channels that help them reach new customers. App advertisers activating full-funnel campaigns, alongside unified, privacy-safe measurement, can better understand which channels are performing and where to invest.”
Finance: sessions surge 21%, LATAM leads installs by wide margin
Finance apps delivered what is arguably the most striking figure in the report. Global finance app sessions rose 21% year-over-year in 2025, despite a 4% decline in installs. The report attributes the session strength to banking and payments apps becoming embedded in daily routines globally. Session length increased 8% to 7.18 minutes globally, with North America leading at 8.43 minutes.
LATAM dominated the regional install ranking with 76% growth and 57% session growth. MENA followed with 42% install growth and 10% session growth. APAC combined 5% install growth with a 50% surge in sessions – a significant gap that points to intense use among an already-installed base. Europe posted 15% install growth and 19% session growth. North America advanced 5% in installs and 17% in sessions.
At the subvertical level, crypto app installs grew 16% year-over-year in 2025, while stock trading installs rose 12%. Payment app installs increased 2%, though sessions surged 22%. Finance app CPI fell globally from $1.51 to $1.13, with the steepest reductions in Europe (from $7.37 to $4.75) and North America (from $7.03 to $4.13). Crypto CPI fell from $5.17 to $2.90, while payment CPI rose 29% to $1.44 and banking CPI declined 18% to $2.09.
The global paid/organic ratio for finance apps climbed to 1.13, with LATAM’s increase to 3.26 the most pronounced regional shift. The number of digital wallet users reached 4.5 billion in 2025. The global neobanking market is forecast to reach an estimated $13.67 trillion by 2031, according to third-party projections cited in the report.
Finance app retention showed slight softening: day 1 declined from 13% to 12%, day 7 held at 6%, and day 30 fell from 3% to 2%.
PPC Land previously documented Adjust’s Finance App Insights Report for 2024, which showed in-app revenue for finance apps jumping 119% year-over-year in Q1 2024. The 2026 benchmarks reflect a maturing category where session frequency matters more than new installs.
AI and cross-platform measurement as structural priorities
The report frames 2026 as the year AI moves from an optional enhancement to core marketing infrastructure. According to the document, as many as 88% of businesses now use AI in their daily work – 13 percentage points higher than the prior year and 76 percentage points higher than when ChatGPT launched in November 2022. Nearly two-thirds of organizations remain in the experimentation or pilot phase, however, leaving measurable efficiency gains still unevenly distributed. Organizations that have advanced their AI deployment reportedly achieve efficiency gains above 20%.
Three operational uses of AI are identified: data analysis assistants that surface decision-ready insights in natural language interfaces; smart audience segmentation that updates dynamically based on behavioral signals rather than static demographic lists; and generative AI creative tools that systematically test variants and model user journeys.
On cross-platform measurement, the report notes that only around 31% of marketers report complete satisfaction with their ability to unify and read data across platforms. The move from mobile-first to multi-platform strategy creates attribution gaps as users research on mobile browsers, compare on desktop, and convert in-app. Adjust’s TrueLink deep linking product, launched in September 2024, addresses part of this challenge by creating universal links across campaign environments.
Jeff Katz, Head of Emerging Sales at Roku, offered a pointed observation on the measurement challenge that spans screens: “With discovery, engagement, and conversion spanning screens and devices, advertisers need unified measurement and optimization to understand how mobile and TV work together to drive performance across the full funnel. You don’t ‘click’ your TV the way you do on mobile devices, and new technology and partnerships are crucial to accurately measuring impact.”
Deep Shah, Global Head of AdTech Partnerships at TikTok for Business, added: “As we head into 2026, mobile discovery will be driven less by linear funnels and more by participation. With users discovering, engaging, and converting through culture-led content across platforms, brands that design for community-driven experiences, rather than interruptions, will be better positioned to drive impact across the full journey.”
For mobile marketers, the report’s significance lies less in any single data point than in the direction the composite picture suggests: rising engagement against flattening install growth, rising costs in gaming, falling costs in finance, and a widening capability gap between teams that have operationalized AI and those still experimenting. The AppsFlyer State of Mobile report published in December 2025 similarly documented that global app marketing spend reached $109 billion, with GenAI app advertising alone attracting $824 million – contextualizing the competitive environment Adjust’s benchmarks are set against.
The report is based on aggregated, anonymized data from Adjust’s top 5,000 apps and its total tracked dataset, covering approximately 250 countries based on the ISO 3166-1 standard. Data runs from January 2024 through January 2026.
TimelineNovember 2022 – ChatGPT launches; marks the reference point Adjust uses to measure AI business adoption growth (76 percentage points since then to 88% today)September 24, 2024 – Adjust launches TrueLink, its multi-platform deep linking product for app marketersQ1 2025 – ATT opt-in rate industry average stands at 35%, according to Adjust dataMarch 30, 2025 – France fines Apple €150 million over App Tracking Transparency framework as anticompetitiveFebruary 12, 2025 – PPC Land reports on an Adjust and AppLovin report showing smartphone users spending 5 hours daily on mobileJuly 23, 2025 – Adjust and Sensor Tower release Japan Mobile App Trends 2025, showing finance installs up 50% in JapanAugust 6, 2025 – Adjust releases Shopping App Insights Report, documenting 14% H1 2025 e-commerce install decline alongside 2% session growthSeptember 17, 2025 – Adjust and Google Ads publish web-to-app marketing handbook covering multi-channel acquisition strategyDecember 10, 2025 – AppsFlyer releases annual mobile app report, showing $109 billion in global app marketing spend and $824 million in GenAI app advertisingDecember 22, 2025 – Italy fines Apple €98.6 million for ATT-related competition violationsQ1 2026 – ATT opt-in rate rises to 38% industry-wide, with gaming leading at 39%February 18, 2026 – Adjust publishes Mobile App Trends: 2026 Edition with data across gaming, e-commerce, and finance verticals globallySummary
Who: Adjust, an AppLovin (NASDAQ: APP) company, with contributions from Google Ads, Snap for Business, TikTok for Business, Sensor Tower, Roku, and Alison.ai.
What: The Mobile App Trends: 2026 Edition report, a global benchmarking study covering gaming, e-commerce, and finance app performance across APAC, Europe, LATAM, MENA, and North America, using aggregated and anonymized data from thousands of apps tracked between January 2024 and January 2026. Key findings include global app installs up 10% and sessions up 7% in 2025; finance sessions up 21%; gaming CPI up 30% to $0.56; ATT opt-in rates rising from 35% to 38%; LATAM finance installs growing 76%; and e-commerce installs declining 10% even as sessions rose 5%.
When: The report was published on February 18, 2026, covering data from January 2024 through January 2026.
Where: Global, with specific regional breakdowns covering APAC, Europe, LATAM, MENA, and North America. Adjust is headquartered in Berlin, Germany.
Why: The report provides mobile marketing and user acquisition teams with performance benchmarks and contextual analysis to support campaign optimization, budget allocation, and growth strategy across three of the most commercially significant app verticals, at a moment when AI adoption and cross-platform measurement have emerged as defining competitive factors.
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