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72 Mobile App Support Statistics for 2026 (Updated October)

72 mobile app support statistics, including our study of 74,588 Google Play reviews: ratings, complaints, developer replies and store rules. Updated monthly.

Tarang Agarwal, Founder 19 min read
Reviews that mention support: 42.8% on the Shopify App Store against 3.6% on Google Play
On this page
  1. Key Takeaways
  2. How big is the mobile app economy?
  3. How do users rate mobile apps today?
  4. What do unhappy mobile users complain about?
  5. How often do app reviews mention support?
  6. Do mobile developers reply to app reviews?
  7. How fast do developers reply to reviews?
  8. Does replying to a review change the rating?
  9. What do Apple and Google require of app support?
  10. Methodology and Sources
  11. Sources

Mobile app users rarely write about support in their reviews. They write about crashes, ads, logins and money, and they give one star when something breaks. These 72 statistics show what support looks like for mobile app developers in 2026: the size of the app economy, how users rate apps, what they complain about, how often and how fast developers reply, whether replies change ratings, and what Apple and Google require.

Much of the data is new. We studied 74,588 recent Google Play reviews of 525 top apps across 36 categories, and compared them with our study of the Shopify App Store. The rest comes from Apple and Google’s own documentation and announcements, Pew Research Center, Gartner and peer-reviewed research. The method, and where it is thin, is set out at the end.

Updated October 2026. We re-run the Google Play study and check every link monthly.

Key Takeaways

  • 28.7% of recent Google Play reviews of top apps give 1 star (Convot Google Play study, Oct 2026).
  • Only 3.6% of recent Google Play reviews mention support, against 42.8% of reviews on the Shopify App Store (Convot Google Play study, Oct 2026).
  • 43.2% of top Google Play apps did not reply to any of their 150 newest reviews (Convot Google Play study, Oct 2026).
  • Apps with 100 million or more installs replied to 15.2% of recent reviews, half the rate of apps with 1 million to 100 million (Convot Google Play study, Oct 2026).
  • When Google Play developers reply to a review, the median reply comes about 7 hours after it was posted (Convot Google Play study, Oct 2026).
  • 18.9% of one- and two-star Google Play reviews are about money: paying, subscriptions, premium features or refunds (Convot Google Play study, Oct 2026).
  • Top Google Play apps show a median rating of 4.54, but their recent reviews average 3.52 stars (Convot Google Play study, Oct 2026).
  • Users changed their rating 38.7% of the time after a developer responded to their review, in a study of 10,713 top Google Play apps (McIlroy et al., IEEE Software, May 2017).
  • Apple’s App Review evaluated more than 9.1 million app submissions in 2025 (Apple Newsroom, May 2026).
  • Apple blocked close to 195 million fraudulent ratings and reviews in 2025 (Apple Newsroom, May 2026).
  • Apple lets an app ask a user for a rating up to three times in 365 days (Apple, Ratings, Reviews, and Responses, Oct 2026).
  • 91% of US adults own a smartphone (Pew Research Center, Mobile Fact Sheet, Nov 2025).

How big is the mobile app economy?

The app stores are enormous, and almost all of that scale sits with apps that pay the stores little or nothing. For a small team, the competition for attention is fierce and reviews are one of the few levers it controls.

Bar chart of Apple App Review in 2025: 9.1 million submissions evaluated, 2 million rejected, 443,000 rejected for privacy violations and 371,000 for copying, spam or misleading users Figure 1: Apple rejected more than one submission in five in 2025, so even getting an app or an update in front of users takes work before support starts. Source: Apple Newsroom, May 2026. Chart by Convot from Apple’s figures.

How large are the App Store and Google Play?

Apple and Google publish their own scale figures.

  • The App Store ecosystem facilitated more than $1.4 trillion in developer billings and sales in 2025, according to a study by Analysis Group economists commissioned by Apple (Apple Newsroom, Jun 2026).
  • That 2025 total was $1.1 trillion of physical goods and services, $149 billion of digital goods and services, and $151 billion of in-app advertising (Apple Newsroom, Jun 2026).
  • The App Store has more than 850 million average weekly users across 175 countries and regions (Apple Newsroom, Jun 2026).
  • Apple welcomed more than 306,000 new developers in 2025 (Apple Newsroom, May 2026).
  • Google Play prevented more than 1.75 million policy-violating apps from being published in 2025 and banned more than 80,000 developer accounts (Google, Feb 2026).
  • Google Play runs more than 10,000 safety checks on every app it publishes (Google, Feb 2026).

What do the stores charge developers?

Most small developers pay a reduced fee or none.

  • Developers paid no commission to Apple on more than 90% of 2025 App Store ecosystem billings and sales (Apple Newsroom, Jun 2026).
  • Apple’s Small Business Program charges a 15% commission to developers with up to $1 million in proceeds in the prior year (Apple, App Store Small Business Program, Oct 2026).
  • Google says 97% of developers distribute on Google Play at no charge, and 99% of those who pay a service fee qualify for 15% or less (Google Play Console Help, Service fees, Oct 2026).

How many people use smartphones?

Smartphones are close to universal in the US, and for some users the only way online.

How do users rate mobile apps today?

Mobile reviews are far harsher than reviews of business apps. Consumers who are happy rarely write; consumers who hit a problem often do, and they give one star.

Bar chart comparing recent reviews by star rating: on Google Play 53.4% are 5 stars and 28.7% are 1 star, against 94.2% and 2.1% on the Shopify App Store Figure 2: One recent Google Play review in four is a one-star review, against one in fifty on the Shopify App Store, so mobile teams get far more public criticism to respond to. Source: Convot Google Play study and Convot Shopify App Store review study, Oct 2026. Chart by Convot.

What does the rating spread look like?

Our study of 74,588 recent reviews found ratings split at the extremes.

Is the public rating a fair picture of recent experience?

The listed rating is often a poor guide to recent experience, because it includes years of older ratings.

Which categories get the harshest reviews?

Category matters more than size.

  • 51.6% of recent reviews of top dating apps give 1 star, the highest share of any category (Convot Google Play study, Oct 2026).
  • Books and reference apps had the lowest one-star share at 13.7%, followed by games at 15.7% (Convot Google Play study, Oct 2026).

What do unhappy mobile users complain about?

Money comes first, then things that stop the app working. Very few angry users mention support by name, which means they never tried it or could not find it.

Bar chart of themes in low-rated Google Play reviews: money 18.9%, bugs or crashes 11.5%, ads 11.2%, login or account 10.0%, support or no response 7.8%, an update made it worse 5.7% Figure 3: Most low ratings come from problems a support conversation could have caught, from a charge the user did not expect to a login that failed. Source: Convot Google Play study, 25,173 one- and two-star reviews with text, Oct 2026. Chart by Convot.

What themes show up in low ratings?

Keyword matching on 25,173 one- and two-star reviews with text found these themes.

What does earlier research find in app reviews?

Academic studies have coded reviews by hand for more than a decade.

How often do app reviews mention support?

App reviews rarely mention support, and that is the opportunity. A mobile user who meets your support is unusual enough to remember it.

Bar chart of reviews that mention support: 42.8% on the Shopify App Store, 3.6% on Google Play, 8.2% of Google Play 1-star reviews and 1.3% of Google Play 5-star reviews Figure 4: Business buyers review the people behind an app; consumers review the app itself, so on mobile support has to be visible inside the app to be used at all. Source: Convot Google Play study and Convot Shopify App Store review study, Oct 2026. Chart by Convot.

Which reviews mention support?

Support comes up mostly when something went wrong.

Can users find help without contacting anyone?

Self-service rarely finishes the job on its own.

  • Only 14% of customer service issues are fully resolved in self-service, according to a Gartner survey of 5,728 customers (Gartner, Aug 2024).
  • 43% of failed self-service attempts failed because customers could not find content relevant to their issue (Gartner, Aug 2024).
  • 64% of customers would prefer companies did not use AI in customer service, mostly because they fear it will be harder to reach a person (Gartner, Jul 2024).

For the business-app side of the picture, see the Shopify app support statistics.

Do mobile developers reply to app reviews?

Many of the biggest apps barely reply at all, while mid-sized apps reply to almost a third of reviews. Replying is one of the few support moments every future user can see.

Bar chart of the share of recent Google Play reviews that get a developer reply by app size: 29.1% for apps under 1 million installs, 30.2% for 1 million to 100 million, and 15.2% for 100 million or more Figure 5: The largest apps reply least, which leaves room for smaller teams to look more responsive than the market leaders on their own listing. Source: Convot Google Play study, 525 top apps, Oct 2026. Chart by Convot.

How many reviews get a reply?

Reply habits split sharply between apps.

  • 26.3% of recent Google Play reviews of top apps got a developer reply (Convot Google Play study, Oct 2026).
  • 23.0% of apps replied to at least half of their newest reviews, and 13.1% replied to 90% or more (Convot Google Play study, Oct 2026).
  • Of apps with five or more recent one- and two-star reviews, 44.8% replied to none of them (Convot Google Play study, Oct 2026).

Which categories reply most?

Category habits differ more than twentyfold.

  • Top personalization apps replied to 59.6% of recent reviews and sports apps to 55.8% (Convot Google Play study, Oct 2026).
  • Top productivity apps replied to 2.2% of recent reviews and business apps to 8.2% (Convot Google Play study, Oct 2026).

How fast do developers reply to reviews?

Teams that reply tend to reply quickly. Google holds new reviews back for about a day, so a fast reply can be in place before most people see the review.

Bar chart of how fast Google Play developers reply: 31.0% within 1 hour, 69.2% within 1 day and 93.5% within 7 days Figure 6: Seven replies in ten arrive within a day, often before the review is even public, which is fast enough to change what the next reader sees. Source: Convot Google Play study, 18,681 developer replies, Oct 2026. Chart by Convot.

How quickly do replies arrive?

Speed varies less than reply rates do.

What tools do developers reply with?

Both stores let teams reply at scale.

Does replying to a review change the rating?

Replying often changes the rating. Developers reply most to the reviews where a fix could change the score, and research shows users do update their ratings after a reply.

Bar chart of Google Play reviews that get a developer reply by star rating: 33.1% of 1-star, 32.5% of 2-star, 29.9% of 3-star, 24.4% of 4-star and 21.9% of 5-star reviews Figure 7: Developers aim their replies at low ratings, the reviews where an answer has the most to win back. Source: Convot Google Play study, 74,588 reviews of 525 top apps, Oct 2026. Chart by Convot.

What does the research say about replies?

Studies of Google Play find replies work as a form of support.

What do the stores show developers about replies?

Both stores notify the reviewer, which is why replies can move a rating.

What do Apple and Google require of app support?

Both stores require a way to reach the developer and police how teams ask for reviews. Neither sets a response time.

Summary of Apple and Google rules: Apple allows 3 review prompts per 365 days, requires an easy way to contact the developer, bans custom prompts and incentivised reviews, and notifies reviewers of replies; Google limits replies to 350 characters, holds reviews about 24 hours, bans incentivised ratings and weights recent ratings Figure 8: The stores regulate how you ask for ratings in detail, but leave how quickly you answer users entirely to you. Source: Apple App Review Guidelines, Jun 2026, and Google Play Console Help, fetched Oct 2026. Chart by Convot.

What does Apple require?

Apple’s rules sit in its App Review Guidelines and developer pages.

  • Apple requires an app and its Support URL to include an easy way to contact the developer, under guideline 1.5 (Apple, App Review Guidelines, Jun 2026).
  • Apple requires apps to use its own review-prompt API and disallows custom review prompts, under guideline 5.6.1 (Apple, App Review Guidelines, Jun 2026).
  • Developers who manipulate reviews with paid, incentivised, filtered or fake feedback can be expelled from the Apple Developer Program (Apple, App Review Guidelines, Jun 2026).
  • Apple says replies should address the user’s comment and leave out personal information, spam and marketing (Apple, App Review Guidelines, Jun 2026).
  • When a developer replies, the reviewer is notified and can update their review (Apple, Ratings, Reviews, and Responses, Oct 2026).
  • Apple advises making support contact details easy to find in the app and on the product page, to fix bad experiences before they become poor reviews (Apple, Ratings, Reviews, and Responses, Oct 2026).

What does Google require?

Google’s rules sit in Play Console Help and the Android developer docs.

Convot gives each mobile app its own help center, support email address, changelog and roadmap in one inbox, and your team can answer from the Convot iOS and Android apps. An in-app chat SDK for iOS and Android is in early access. See Convot for mobile apps.

Methodology and Sources

Convot Google Play study (October 2026). On 3 October 2026 we listed the top 15 free apps in each of 36 Google Play categories (all app categories plus overall Games), in the US store in English: 525 apps with median installs of 10 million or more (71 under 1 million, 327 from 1 million to 100 million, 127 with 100 million or more). For each app we collected the listing and its 150 newest reviews, removing duplicates by review ID: 74,588 reviews, with a median date of 28 September 2026. “Mentions support” means the text contains support, customer service or care, help desk, live chat, contact, respond or response, replied, no reply or answer, email, or ticket. Themes are keyword matches, so they are approximate: the money theme counts any mention of paying, subscriptions, premium, money or refunds. The sample is chart-topping apps, so it describes the market leaders rather than small indie apps.

Convot Shopify App Store review study (October 2026). The comparison figures come from our study of 359 Shopify apps and 12,471 reviews, described on the Shopify app support statistics page.

Other sources. Apple and Google policy and help pages mostly show no publication date, so they are dated by the month we checked them; Apple’s App Review Guidelines and Google’s In-App Reviews page show their own update dates. Apple’s $1.4 trillion ecosystem figure comes from a study Apple commissioned. Academic papers are dated by publication; Pagano and Maalej’s App Store data is from 2013 and is labelled as such. We found no primary study of what mobile users expect from in-app support specifically, so this page makes no claim about it.

Sources

Mobile appsStatisticsResearch

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