YouTube and other apps that are 'data hungry'

YouTube leads the list of the most popular mobile apps that use the most data, with 69.4K megabytes spent per hour, with over 90% of the data being background usage.

Content consumption through streaming services like Netflix and YouTube is the most time-consuming, with users spending an average of 30 hours per month.

Pinterest uses over 1K megabytes in an hour, but people spend only 10 hours a month in the app.

The average smartphone user now consumes over 11 gigabytes of mobile data per month, a 40% increase from just two years ago. A recent study by TRG Datacenters compared the statistics for the 30 most popular mobile apps globally across both iOS and Android platforms to identify the apps that use the most data. The analysis focused on the apps that put the heaviest burden on users’ mobile data plans and collected data on average usage hours per month, active data usage per hour, and background data usage. The total data usage was calculated, ranking the apps from the highest usage to the lowest.

Here is a summary of the findings:

App Avg Hours Per Month Data Usage (MB/hour) Total (MB/Hour)

YouTube 30 2.3K 69.4K

Twitch 30 1K 30K

Snapchat 22.5 1.2K 27.4K

TikTok 22.5 948 22.8K

Threads 22.5 984 22.1K

Netflix 30 636 19K

Instagram 22.5 828 18.7K

Facebook 22.5 780 17.8K

Telegram 15 840 12.6K

Pinterest 10 1K 10.2K

The mobile app that uses the most data is YouTube, with 69.4K megabytes per hour, and over 90% of it is spent on background usage. The active usage is also the highest on the list, with 2.3K megabytes in an hour. As a video-streaming service, it is among the most used apps in the ranking, with people spending 30 hours on average in the app, or 1 hour a day.

Twitch takes 2nd position in the ranking of the apps with the highest data usage, at 30K megabytes, over 50% less than YouTube. Background data usage accounts for 29K megabytes. Similar to YouTube, users spend over a full day a month using this app, averaging 30 hours.

Snapchat comes in third, with 27.4K megabytes, following Twitch closely. Snapchat uses more data than other social media apps in the ranking, and active data usage comes to 1.2K per hour, more than Twitch. People manage their presence on social media a bit better, spending 22.5 hours per month, or 45 minutes per day.

TikTok ranks fourth, at 22.8K megabytes. Focus on video content makes it a heavy-hitter app when it comes to data use, with 948 megabytes spent in just one hour. Similar to Snapchat, users spend around 45 minutes a day on this app.

Threads is fifth on the list of mobile apps using the most data, making users spend 22.1K megabytes every hour. The active data usage on Threads is actually higher than TikTok, with 984 megabytes, but the background data usage is smaller.

Netflix takes sixth place, with 19K megabytes used. As a streaming platform primarily made for PCs, it is very data-heavy, with over 18K in background data usage. Similar to Twitch and YouTube, the app leads in usage time, with 30 hours a month.

In seventh position is Instagram, at 18.7K megabytes, very similar to Netflix. At the same time, Instagram users spend more mobile data actively than on Netflix, with 828 megabytes per hour. The rest of the data is spent on the background processes, such as auto-refreshing, content pre-loading, notifications, and app analytics.

Facebook holds eighth place, making users spend 17.8K megabytes per hour. The active data usage for Facebook is the second-lowest in the top 10, with 780 megabytes, being second only to Netflix. Heavy background data use (estimated at 17K) is still enough to put a significant burden on the app users.

Telegram is ninth, with 12.6K megabytes used. It is the second-least-used app in the top 10, with an average of 15 hours spent by users each month. Active usage, which includes scrolling feeds and messaging, is higher for Telegram (840 megabytes) than for Facebook or Instagram, but the lower usage time and fewer background functions put the app lower in the list.

Pinterest rounds up the top 10 of the mobile apps that use the most data, with 10.2K megabytes used per hour. Out of all the apps in the ranking, people spend the least amount of time on Pinterest, with only 10 hours per month. This helps to balance heavier active data usage that comes to 1 kilobyte per hour, but users who use Pinterest often should keep an eye out for it still.