The monthly report highlights the biggest shifts in advertising, revenue, and downloads across global mobile apps, helping marketers and publishers track changing user behavior.
Global Mobile App Performance in May 2026
- Temu ramped up its iOS ad spending, surpassing a number of short drama apps to take the top spot
- Japan’s Golden Week drove strong momentum, with tapple’s revenue surging by 29%
- Edits benefited from its anniversary campaign, leading to a sharp spike in downloads outside the ranking
- PineDrama downloads jumped nearly 200% following its TikTok integration
Top 20 Global Mobile Apps by Advertising Activity
May marked a noticeable shift in the global app advertising landscape. While short-drama and web novel apps dominated previous months, Temu reclaimed the top spot on iOS by significantly increasing its advertising activity. At the same time, new entrants such as PickNovel and PineDrama continued to intensify competition in the content app category.
Temu’s Aggressive iOS Push Overtakes Short Drama Apps in Advertising
Temu significantly increased its iOS advertising efforts in May, moving from a relatively modest presence to the platform’s most active advertiser. The specific data is as follows:
- Total Volume: The total deduplicated ad creatives across both platforms reached approximately 1.13 million in May, with iOS accounting for 53.1%.
- Geographic Coverage: Ads were run across 86 countries and regions, with the top three by share being the United States, Canada, and Australia.
- Creative Formats: Images made up over 56.81% of the creatives deployed in May, while video content accounted for 42.27%.
- Image Specifications: 1080×1080 square assets were the most widely used image type, making up over 76.80% of the total.
The most prominent high-performing creative in May was the carousel image ad detailed below. One of Temu’s best-performing creatives relied on a simple but effective formula:
- A bold discount message for new users
- Product-focused visuals
- Popular shopping categories
- A clear value proposition
This approach helped communicate both savings and product variety within seconds.
PickNovel Breaks into the iOS Top 20 with Marital and Family Drama Creatives
Next, let’s look at PickNovel, a newly launched web novel platform. The product kicked off its user acquisition campaigns back in April 2021, focusing primarily on iOS. Its specific marketing data for May is below:
- Total Volume: The total deduplicated ad creatives on iOS reached approximately 81,000 in May, representing a month-over-month (MoM) increase of about 42.11%.
- Geographic Coverage: Ads were deployed across 86 countries and regions, with a strategic focus on high-paying markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
- Language Distribution: The active ad copy was overwhelmingly in English, accounting for over 98.29% of the total, followed by French and German.
May’s ad copy trends focused on emotional narratives, using keywords like ‘years,’ ‘divorce,’ ‘husband,’ and ‘family’ to highlight marital and domestic conflicts. These creatives leverage female-oriented ‘fast-satisfaction’ storytelling, emphasizing betrayal and dramatic tension through intense facial expressions and action-driven verbs. This strategy successfully hooks readers by immersing them in urban-romance plots driven by high emotional stakes and relatable domestic drama.
Top Keywords in PickNovel’s May Ad Creatives
FreeReels Boosts Android Ad Spend by 75% to Expand in Southeast Asia and Brazil
Finally, let’s take a look at FreeReels. After breaking into the Android top 20 advertising chart in April, the platform further ramped up its marketing spend in May, climbing to the 9th spot. Its specific data for May is below:
- Total Volume: The total deduplicated ad creatives on Android reached approximately 210,000 in May, representing a massive month-over-month (MoM) growth of over 75%.
- Geographic Coverage: Ads were run across 86 countries and regions, with top-ranking markets by share being the Philippines (26.49%), Indonesia (23.44%), and Brazil (21.14%).
- Content Inventory: The platform had roughly 4,450 active drama series running ads in May, which included around 1,260 newly launched titles.
Top Creative Performer: Among all active dramas in May, the series with the highest deduplicated creative count was Ang Perpektong Bitag. The platform relied heavily on revenge-themed short dramas, one of the strongest-performing content categories in May.
Top 20 Mobile Apps by Maximum Revenue
App Store Revenue Leaders
HBO Max continues to lead revenue growth, driven by:
- Subscriber Growth: Surpassing 140 million global subscribers.
- International Expansion: Successful acquisition of new users in international markets.
- Ad-Supported Tier: Scaling the ad-supported subscription model.
- Premium Positioning: Re-emphasizing the “HBO” brand to enhance high-value content appeal.
Outside the charts, Japanese social dating platform tapple saw its App Store revenue surge by 29.81%. This growth was fueled by:
- Spring “New Life” Support: Continuous user acquisition from its seasonal campaign.
- Golden Week Campaigns: Strategic marketing during Japan’s major holiday period.
Google Play Revenue Highlights
Google One has successfully transformed into a Gemini-centric AI productivity platform, driving significant subscription revenue through:
- Strategic Bundling: Accelerating the shift from traditional cloud storage to a comprehensive AI ecosystem by bundling capabilities.
- Tiered AI Plans: The introduction of Google AI Plus, AI Pro, and AI Ultra.
- Advanced AI Features: High conversion rates for top-tier packages featuring Gemini Spark and Google Flow.
Top 20 Mobile Apps by Maximum Downloads
App Store Download Leaders
During May, Instagram’s video editing tool, Edits, rolled out multiple updates optimizing video editing and AI creation features, while leveraging its first-anniversary marketing campaigns to boost market exposure. Concurrently, Meta continues to position Edits as a direct competitor to CapCut, successfully attracting downloads from a broader base of content creators by offering free watermark-free exports, deep integration with Instagram Reels, and built-in creator analytics.
Google Play Download Leaders
TikTok has been driving rapid download growth for PineDrama by testing a dedicated Short Drama channel within its main app and continuously funneling traffic to the standalone platform. This integration, coupled with a free, ad-free user strategy and the rising global popularity of micro-dramas, propelled PineDrama‘s downloads to skyrocket by 184.80% in May.
Conclusion
May’s rankings show that competition across the global app market remains strong, with e-commerce, AI, and short-form content platforms continuing to compete for user attention through aggressive user acquisition and evolving monetization strategies.
For a deeper look at advertising trends, revenue performance, and download rankings, explore www.socialpeta.com
