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Globally, finance apps have become essential to modern life—ranking as the second most indispensable app category.
Only behind communication tools and ahead of shopping, gaming, entertainment, and music apps. This sense of indispensability is reflected in usage patterns. Finance ranks as the 4th most frequently used app category globally—trailing only entertainment, music/podcasts, and social media. In India, finance apps jump to 3rd, illustrating their growing role in emerging markets.
We saw time spent in finance apps grow at a double-digit rate in 2024, which really highlights the value these apps offer users. Subcategories like digital wallet & P2P payment, consumer banking, and even cryptocurrency all contributed. Moloco’s findings show how users are spending more time across a broader range of app categories, with finance among the top.
Seema Shah, VP of Insights
For regular finance app users, advertising is the single most important driver of app discovery, over browsing the app store and recommendations from friends and family. 55% of them usually discover new apps from ads and believe ads in mobile apps help them discover new products or brands.
Time spent in finance apps is rising steadily across key regions, even as engagement in social and entertainment apps begins to plateau
Compound annual growth rate of total hours spent on mobile apps
Source: Sensor Tower | 2023-2024
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 have been slower to adopt.
Consumer app marketers, including those in finance, 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 finance brands, the results were even stronger with an average uplift of 116%.
Only 12% of app spend goes beyond walled gardens
Global ad spend for consumer apps and gaming apps by channel | 2024
Source: Moloco estimates of user acquisition spend | 2024
Going beyond the walled gardens can unlock incremental ROAS
ROAS uplift, gaming vs. consumer apps | 2025
Source: Singular meta-analysis of over 2,000 gaming and consumer apps | 2025
Meet the Finance App User
Casino games are a popular app category for the U.S. finance persona
They spend 6.3x more time in casino games than the U.S. general population
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VIZ 11 for finance 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
Males make up the majority of crypto app usage (83%) and this demographic tends to spend the most amount of time in sports, strategy games, and news apps.
Older audiences (55+) in the U.S. spend 45% more time in finance apps than the general population, an audience that also sees relatively less time on social media and entertainment, and more time in games and utilities like weather and news apps.
As a result of this behavior, finance and crypto app users are more likely to be found in the Independent App Ecosystem.
Crypto users spend 2x more time in finance apps
…Than other finance app users
Source: Sensor Tower Finance and Crypto Personas, U.S. | Jan 1 - June 30, 2025
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, 58% of regular finance app users globally would like to spend less time on social media (global), and half (49%) of crypto app investors would like to spend less time on social media:
- U.S.: 54% regular finance app users; 48% crypto app investors
- India: 56% regular finance app users; 48% crypto app investors
- U.K.: 56% regular finance app users; 62% crypto app investors
Over 1/3 of regular finance app users feel negatively when using TikTok (42%), Snapchat (41%), and Instagram (34%). That means these platforms make them feel envious, distrustful, anxious, or overwhelmed.
As such, they have changed their behavior. These sentiments offer a compelling signal that today’s users are actively reevaluating their digital habits, seeking more purposeful and multifaceted experiences across a broader range of apps.
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.
Finance app usage peaks at 6-8am
Finance app usage by time of day
Source: Moloco internal analysis of ad opportunities by category and time of day | 2025
If finance marketers aren’t evolving their strategies to meet users in new environments, they’re not just missing reach—they’re missing relevance. This is why it is so important for us to have our ad strategies reflect where users actually spend their time.
Greg Rossi, Experian Consumer Services
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 finance marketers to evolve their strategies to meet users where they are most active and engaged. Moloco Ads is purpose-built to help finance app 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.
