Mobile apps from
Booking.com
and
Vrbo
advanced one spot each - to fifth and sixth place respectively - on a list of 2022’s most downloaded travel apps in the United States compared to their positions in 2021, according to new data from
Apptopia
. The
Expedia
app is up from ninth on the list in 2021 to seventh last year.
Meanwhile,
Hopper
fell from fourth to ninth place on Apptopia’s U.S. list, and
Airbnb
dropped from fifth to eighth year-over-year.
Tara Kirkpatrick, Apptopia’s manager of content and communications, calls the rise of Expedia’s app “the most interesting underlying story” of the analysis outlined in a blog post,
“Worldwide and U.S. Download Leaders 2022.”
[Downloads are just one measure of an app’s success; Apptopia also tracks
monthly active users
.]
Climbing two spots may not seem impressive, she says, but Expedia’s app downloads nearly doubled year-over-year to 16.6 million. According to Kirkpatrick, Expedia built a price prediction engine similar to Hopper’s, making the companies “unlikely competitors.”
“After a breakout 2021, Hopper’s growth wanes in the U.S. That, along with Airbnb’s demise in the States, leaves room for Booking.com, Vrbo and Expedia,” she says.
Uber maintained the top spot in the U.S., with 32 million downloads in 2022. Google Maps and Lyft again round out the top three in the country.
According to Apptopia’s list of the most downloaded travel apps worldwide, Google Maps, Uber and Booking.com maintained the top three spots in 2022. The Airbnb app climbed one spot globally, from fifth to fourth. Bolt lost ground, falling from seventh to the ninth place, and Where is My Train rose from ninth to sixth.
Adam Blacker, Apptopia’s vice president of insights, says that Chinese ride hailing app Didi - ranked sixth in 2021 - disappeared from the top charts due to China’s zero-tolerance COVID policy.
In a “sign of the times,” the Upside app, which enables consumers to save money on gas and groceries, was the fourth most downloaded travel app worldwide, Blacker says.
Looking at worldwide data for online travel agencies, Booking.com and Airbnb held onto their spots as the first and second most downloaded OTA apps. Expedia advanced from fourth to third, with 27 million downloads in 2022. Agoda and Vrbo each advanced one spot to fourth and fifth. Hopper fell from third to sixth year-over-year based on worldwide data.
In the U.S. alone, Booking.com dominates Apptopia’s list of the most downloaded OTA apps, rising from third to first place with 17.1 million downloads. Vrbo climbs to second place in the U.S. - an improvement foretold in
Apptopia’s mid-year report
. And Expedia rose to third place. Airbnb and Hopper fell to fourth and fifth respectively.
“Compared with last year, the final three spots on the U.S. OTA top chart have been swapped out,” Blacker says. “Kayak, Skyscanner and Tripadvisor have replaced Travelocity, Orbitz and Hotwire - and with lower numbers than those apps received last year.”
Travel brands are
increasingly aiming to
steer customers to their mobile apps
. The CEOs of
Booking Holdings
and
Expedia Group
highlighted their heightened focus on app
use in their most recent earnings reports.