Operators’ mobile phone plans increasingly provide more data per month at affordable prices. However, not everyone enjoys unlimited gigabytes and you have to be careful not to use them up by using certain applications too much. Holafly experts have prepared a study on the apps that consume the most with just five minutes of use and YouTube, Disney+ and Uber are on the podium.
Even if we have a lot of gigabytes with our mobile rate, it is worth paying attention to how much we use certain apps to make sure we don’t run out in the middle of the month. This is especially important when we travel, either within Spain, or abroad, with a roaming plan.
Holafly, a company that offers mobile Internet connection services with international eSIMs, wanted to know which applications hoard the most data. Its researchers have used the My Data Manager platform to check the gigabyte usage of the most popular apps from an iPhone 15 Pro Max and from a Xiaomi Redmi 9 with Android.
In order for the information collected by My Data Manager to be accurate, they first closed all other applications and disconnected WiFi access. They then started a separate timer when they opened the app in question and used it for exactly five minutes. With the resulting reports from My Data Manager, they have been able to know how many megabytes each one consumes and make a ranking.
The list of the apps that consume the most data
Many of the applications on both Android and iOS that consume the most with streaming platforms. However, Holafly experts have also been able to see how navigation or travel apps, social networks, browsers and other applications that are among the most installed in the App Store and Google Play Store also consume a lot with just five minutes of use.
If you are curious to know the order of those that use mobile data the most and those that use the least, we leave you the list below. It should be noted that those marked in bold are the most popular worldwide, according to Business of Apps and YouGov rankings.
- YouTube (193 MB)
- AllTrails (155MB)
- Disney+ (150MB)
- Waze (110MB)
- Hotels.com (104 MB)
- Uber (102MB)
- Snapchat (101MB)
- Prime Video (97MB)
- Peacock (94MB)
- Google Maps (87MB)
- Pinterest (85MB)
- Max (85MB)
- Threads (82MB)
- TikTok (79MB)
- Paramount+ (75MB)
- Telegram (70MB)
- Instagram (69MB)
- Duolingo (69MB)
- Amazon (68MB)
- Expedia (67MB)
- Facebook (65MB)
- Hulu (59MB)
- Vrbo (59MB)
- Safari (56MB)
- Netflix (53MB)
- Orbitz (51MB)
- X (50MB)
- Bolt (47MB)
- Reddit (45MB)
- Apple TV (44MB)
- Gmail (42MB)
- Skyscanner (40MB)
- Trivago (34MB)
- Vivaldi (33 MB)
- Hopper (30MB)
- AirBnB (29MB)
- Microsoft Edge (29MB)
- Booking.com (27MB)
- Firefox (27MB)
- DuckDuckGo (27MB)
- Google Chrome (24MB)
- LinkedIn (23MB)
- Where is my Train (18 MB)
- Opera (16MB)
- Hostelworld (14 MB)
- City Mapper (11MB)
- Audible (10 MB)
- WhatsApp (9 MB)
- Spotify (7MB)
- Google Translate (3 MB)
Why do apps consume more or less data?
As Holafly experts say, the top 10 of the most popular apps that consume the most data “is dominated by video streaming applications and video-oriented social networks.” However, it also highlights the interference of Uber and Google at the top of the ranking. The reason these two are among those that spend the most gigabytes is that they “constantly download map details and live transportation information.” In contrast to video streaming, the study emphasizes that audio-only streaming barely consumes mobile data. As an example, he gives Spotify, which as you have seen previously only uses 7 MB for five minutes.
Of social networks, Snapchat stands out. Its data consumption is due to it automatically downloading content and caching it for quick access. However, this has an easy solution: activate data saving mode. The second is Pinterest, especially because of all the multimedia content and the fact that the video pins are played even if we don’t click on them.
As the Holafly experts comment, there are several factors that can cause an application to spend more or less gigabytes when we use them, but we can resort to tricks to limit data consumption. For example, through the video quality settings (avoid high definition or HD) or download the music or podcast that you are going to listen to on the street with WiFi, before leaving home.
