Sensor Tower released its annual State of Mobile report for 2025 this week, which is the market intelligence and analytics company’s annual review of global trends, user behavior and market performance of mobile apps across industries.

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Here are the key themes for financial services from the report, which is based on a global overview of user behavior in 2024.

“Changing the behavior of consumers is a long process,” said Dan Latimore, chief research officer of The Financial Revolutionist. “The continued takeup of financial apps, particularly in payments, shows that older consumers are incorporating these new technologies into their daily routines, while users who have never known anything else are entering the financial system and adopting these tools as they become financially autonomous.”

Key takeaways

1. Financial app downloads continue to rise, while the amount of time consumers are spending on these apps jumped by double-digit percentages.

Global financial app downloads exceeded 7 billion in 2024, while the amount of time spent on these apps totaled 21.4 billion hours, up almost 17% year over year.

In the U.S, financial app downloads were up 3.9% last year reversing a trend from 2023, in which the number of downloads went down by 0.4%. U.S. residents spent 1.3 billion hours on financial apps in 2024.

2. Banking and payment apps topped the types of financial apps downloaded in 2024, while cryptocurrency app download activity increased considerably, reminiscent of 2021 levels, when the sector experienced considerable growth and adoption.

Globally, the top apps downloaded included payment apps PhonePe, Google Pay, PayPal, Paytm and DANA. Meanwhile, Binance and Tonkeeper were the top cryptocurrency apps downloaded.

In the U.S., the top genre of financial apps downloaded were digital wallets and peer-to-peer payments, followed by consumer banking. The top apps downloaded were (in order of downloads) Cash App, PayPal, Venmo, Zelle and Capital One Mobile.

3. Crypto’s resurgence is driven by stronger investor confidence amid the easing of inflation and economic recovery.

The global total session count for cryptocurrency apps increased by 37% year over year in 2024, according to sensor tower data. Germany was the fastest-growing market for cryptocurrency app usage, with 91% year-over-year growth in total sessions.

What else to know

Generative AI app adoption surges. Consumers spent nearly $1.1 billion, a more than 200% increase, on apps including ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Doubao. Apps mentioning AI were downloaded 17 billion times. Time spent on AI apps like Character AI and ChatGPT was nearly 7.7 billion hours.

Consumers are increasingly mobile-centric. Mobile hours continue to rise, with consumers spending 4.2 trillion (up more than 5.8% year over year) total hours spent on mobile worldwide last year. App downloads across industries fell slightly to 136 billion, a 1% drop compared to the year-earlier period.

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"Apps have shifted their monetization strategies to capitalize on this increased attention, finding innovative ways to streamline and improve consumers' digital experience. As we look ahead, we expect to see more apps experiment with AI, finding novel and creative ways of incorporating the technology,” Oliver Yeh, CEO and co-founder of Sensor Tower, said in a statement.