Pakistan’s App Market Soars: 3.56 Billion Downloads in 2024, Ranks 9th Globally
Pakistan’s mobile app ecosystem experienced unprecedented growth in 2024, solidifying its position as a major player in the global mobile app economy. The country recorded an impressive 3.56 billion app downloads, marking a robust 9.2% increase from the previous year, which propelled it to become the ninth-largest app market worldwide. This achievement surpassed regional competitors and showcased Pakistan’s rapidly expanding digital footprint.
Beyond just downloads, user engagement was particularly striking, with Pakistanis collectively spending 79.1 billion hours on applications throughout 2024—a 14.1% surge that outstripped comparable emerging markets like the Philippines, Mexico, Indonesia, and Vietnam, highlighting a deep integration with mobile technology. This engagement boom was supported by an 8.4% growth in mobile broadband subscriptions, reaching 134.8 million users, and a near-doubling of average monthly data consumption per user to 8.4 GB.
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Developer Exodus & Temu’s Rise: Challenges Emerge Amidst Pakistan’s Digital Boom
The growth trajectory was further reinforced by the local smartphone manufacturing sector, which saw a 47% surge in locally assembled devices to 31.38 million units, meeting 95% of national demand. In terms of popular apps, Meta and ByteDance continued their dominance, with TikTok leading downloads at 32.4 million, followed by CapCut, Facebook, and WhatsApp. However, the communication landscape saw a dramatic shift following the ban on X (formerly Twitter) in February 2024, benefiting Telegram, which nearly tripled its user base to 12 million downloads. VPN applications also experienced explosive growth as users sought to circumvent restrictions. The e-commerce sector witnessed a significant disruption with Chinese newcomer Temu capturing 8 million downloads in its debut year, surpassing long-time market leader Daraz, indicating intensifying competition and a growing consumer appetite for international shopping platforms.
Unprecedented Engagement: Pakistanis Spend 79.1 Billion Hours on Apps, Outpacing Region
Pakistan’s digital payment ecosystem continued its upward trend, with JazzCash achieving 19.67 million monthly active transacting users—the highest ever for any Pakistani application—while Easypaisa led in downloads. This robust adoption underscores the country’s accelerating shift towards cashless transactions and digital financial inclusion. The streaming industry demonstrated maturation, with platforms like Tamasha prioritizing monetization; despite a decline in downloads, its monthly active users surged by 61%, and paid subscriptions exploded by 367% to 1.35 million users, demonstrating successful conversion from free to premium tiers.
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Despite this robust consumer-side growth, Pakistan’s developer community faced severe challenges in 2024. Active developers dropped by 26% to just 1,400 individuals, and Android app releases plummeted by 55%. Industry analysts attribute this contraction to tightening registration and approval criteria by major app stores, coupled with developers increasingly registering accounts abroad due to payment processing difficulties and taxation challenges. Nonetheless, top locally-developed apps like Easypaisa, Time Warp Scan, and My Zong maintained strong performance.
While Pakistan’s 2024 app market performance distinguished it across South Asia and comparable emerging markets with superior download and engagement growth, addressing these developer ecosystem constraints, particularly payment processing, taxation frameworks, and app store compliance, will be critical for Pakistan to fully capitalize on its digital momentum and transition from a consumer market to an innovation hub.
