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The on-demand app category, including food delivery, quick-service restaurants (QSR), and shopping, is embedded in consumers' daily routines.
According to a Moloco and YouGov survey of 3,000 consumers across the U.S., U.K., and India, 59% of food delivery app users order a few times per week. Usage is even higher in mature markets, with 71% of U.S. users and a striking 82% of U.K. users engaging with food delivery apps multiple times weekly.
Despite this strong engagement, there is still a significant untapped opportunity, particularly for user acquisition:
India shows much deeper food delivery app penetration
Population that has never used a food delivery app | June 2025
Source: Moloco/YouGov survey | June 2025
For regular food delivery purchasers, advertising is the single most important driver of app discovery, over browsing the app store and recommendations from friends and family. 60% of them usually discover new apps from ads, and 67% believe ads in mobile apps help them discover new products or brands.
We’re seeing clear signs that on-demand apps are playing a much bigger role in people’s everyday routines, whether they’re ordering food or catching a ride. Downloads of fast food and grocery delivery apps have picked back up, especially in fast-growing markets such as India. Moloco’s analysis adds helpful context here, showing that users are spending more time across a wider range of app categories, with on-demand among the most active.
Seema Shah, VP of Insights
In short, food & delivery apps are growing in both frequency and relevance, but the market is far from saturated. For marketers, this presents a dual opportunity: retain and re-engage high-frequency users while activating new audiences in regions where penetration still lags.
Big Opportunity, Bigger Results
Diversifying spend to the Independent App Ecosystem significantly improves Day 30 ROAS
Despite representing a $45 billion market, most app promotion is still trapped in walled gardens .
The Independent App Ecosystem —an ecosystem of millions of diverse mobile apps that are developed, published, and monetized by independent companies rather than by the major technology giants—represents a substantial yet underutilized opportunity for consumer app marketers. While gaming marketers have recognized this potential, directing around 35% of their advertising budgets to independent apps, consumer app marketers including those in on-demand categories have been slower to adopt.
Consumer app marketers allocate just 12% of their ad spend outside of the major walled gardens. This is further underscored by a 2025 Moloco/Marketing Dive study, which found nearly 50% of consumer app marketers have never explored advertising beyond Google and Meta.
This gap highlights a critical disconnect: many consumer app marketers have yet to align their budgets with the diverse ways users actually engage across the broader app landscape.
In collaboration with Singular, a meta-analysis was conducted across Singular’s client base to examine how return on ad spend (ROAS) is impacted by focusing the majority of advertising spend on Google and Meta versus diversifying budgets across both major platforms and the Independent App Ecosystem. The results clearly demonstrate the advantage of diversification: marketers who expanded beyond Google and Meta saw an average uplift of 48% in Day 30 ROAS.
For consumer app marketers, including delivery and food brands, the results were even stronger with an average uplift of 116%.
Only 12% of app spend goes beyond walled gardens
Estimated global mobile app ad spend for consumer apps and gaming apps by channel | 2024
Source: Moloco estimates of user acquisition spend by channel | 2024
Going beyond the walled gardens can unlock incremental ROAS
D30 ROAS lift of apps that diversify spend to the Independent App Ecosystem | 2025
Source: Singular meta-analysis of over 2,000 gaming and consumer apps | 2025
Meet the Delivery & Food App User
Delivery & food app users are heavy multi-category consumers
Spending more time in non-gaming and gaming apps than the average user
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Click to see how behavior changes in different countries
VIZ 11 for food GOES HERE
Source: Moloco analysis of independent apps used, ad opportunities, and example ad-supported apps | 2025; Sensor Tower analysis for demographic and time spent | 2025
Food delivery users spend 1.5x more time in food & drink apps
…Than QSR app users
Source: Sensor Tower “Fast Foodies” & “Delivery Diners” Personas | Q2 2025
As a result of this behavior, delivery and food app users are more likely to be found in the independent app ecosystem.
User Attention Is Shifting From Social to More Diverse App Categories
A closer look at user behavior across different app categories reveals a notable shift
User attention is becoming increasingly fragmented, particularly in developed markets, with audiences moving away from traditional social media and entertainment apps towards a broader range of apps such as casual gaming, productivity tools, and emerging categories such as generative AI.
Peak social media?
YoY change in total hours spent on mobile app categories | 2023-2024
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VIZ 7 GOES HERE
Source: Sensor Tower | 2023-2024
Deeper emotional and psychological factors are driving the change in how users spend their time on traditional social platforms. According to a recent Moloco/YouGov survey, 60% of delivery and food paying users (those who ordered from a food delivery app a few times a month or more) would like to spend less time on social media (global).
- India: 64% delivery and food app purchasers
- U.K.: 59% delivery and food app purchasers
- U.S.: 53% delivery and food app purchasers
51% of delivery and food app purchasers feel negatively when using TikTok and over 1/3 of them feel negatively when using Snapchat (46%), Instagram (42%), and Facebook (40%). That means these platforms make them feel envious, distrustful, anxious, or overwhelmed.
As such, they have changed their behavior.
Users Turn to Different Apps Based on Time of Day
Diverse ad inventory on the Independent App Ecosystem provides more moments to reach consumers in different contexts throughout the day
Leveraging inventory in these categories can provide more opportunities to reach users in context-relevant moments.
Delivery & food app usage peaks from 6-9pm
Usage traits shared with graphics & design, gen AI, and sports
Source: Moloco internal analysis of ad opportunities by category and time of day | 2025
We cut Burger King Korea's user acquisition costs by 30% and increased their monthly app installs by 28% by taking them beyond Google and Meta. Our channel diversification strategy generated 7% more daily active users and drove real business growth with a 4 percentage point increase in purchases.
Kyungsang Cho, NNT CEO
Unlocking the Opportunity of the Independent App Ecosystem With Moloco
Given today’s fragmented mobile landscape, finance marketers can no longer rely solely on traditional walled gardens to effectively engage consumers.
Users now spend their time across an increasingly diverse array of mobile apps, making it essential for food & delivery marketers to evolve their strategies to meet users where they are most active and engaged.
Moloco Ads is purpose-built to help food & delivery marketers drive incremental performance, ensuring every decision is made with their success in mind.
Methodology
This report is based on data from Moloco, Sensor Tower, and Singular, with all sources cited contextually throughout the report.
Countries covered: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam.
Analysis window: January-December 2024 (unless noted otherwise).
Key data inputs:
- Moloco’s internal forecasts on global mobile user acquisition spend across channels.
- Singular’s meta-analysis of over $5 billion in ad spend and 2,000 gaming and consumer apps, comparing spend on mostly Google and Meta vs. diversified spend across both major platforms and the Independent App Ecosystem.
- Sensor Tower’s Mobile App Insights and Audiences Insights for country-level and audience-level time spent insights and leading ad platform DAU trends.
- Moloco/Marketing Dive survey (December 2024-January 2025; n=200 US mobile app marketers) tracking campaign goals, channel satisfaction, and adoption of programmatic media.
- Moloco/YouGov survey (June 2025; n=3,000 mobile users in the U.S., the U.K., and India) tracking app usage and sentiment.
- Moloco’s estimates of DAU on the Independent App Ecosystem are based on daily counts of unique Android device IDs seen in bid requests, adjusted by a device-to-unique user ratio and extrapolated to account for non-IDFA traffic (including iOS users). Inventory sources include social platforms such as Kakao, Xiaomi, and X.
- Moloco’s analysis of CPP performance, segmented by advertiser demand and publisher supply, based on more than $1 billion in ad spend.
- Moloco’s analysis of anonymized and aggregated postback data (matching to user bid request IDFAs where available) for paying user usage trends.
- Moloco’s analysis of 660 billion daily bid requests for usage trend insights.
All data is anonymized and aggregated. Results by category and market meet robust thresholds: more than 30 apps and over $50,000 in ad spend or revenue.
