Faced with a scenario in which the Mobile data use is becoming more common Among users, the applications that consume the most data on a daily basis are YouTube with a consumption of 193 megabytes (MB) during a five minute typical usage followed by Disney+, which consumes 150 MB every five minutes, and AllTrails which spends 155 MB for its use during the same period of time.
Mobile data has seen a 20 to 30 percent annual increase in personal consumption according to an Ofcom report. This system requires having an internet access plan through a telephone company, so, although you can normally contract an unlimited data rate, on other occasions this option is seen conditioned by a specific number of megabytes.
On these occasions, which usually occur, for example, when contracting a ‘roaming’ plan to have data in other countries, it is advisable know how many MB each specific application consumesface to face manage its use and avoid consuming all available data. If this happens, Internet use is relegated to a WiFi connection.
To know how much mobile data an application consumes, it must be taken into account that each action carried out through a data connection causes an expense. That is, for example, Every word, image or video viewed through a smartphone’s web browser has its own data fingerprint, which is measured in megabytes. The same thing happens when posting a photo on Instagram or sending messages through ‘WhatsApp’.
Nevertheless, Not all actions or applications consume the same amount of MB. Under this premise, and in order to find out which applications consume the most data on smartphones, the mobile Internet connection services company Holafly has carried out a study that reflects the amount of MB consumed by some of the most used applications with a typical use of five minutes.
To carry out these comparisons, Holafly checked the “appetite” of the ‘apps’ on a ‘smartphone’ with an operating system iOS, specifically, iPhone 15 Pro Max and on a device Android, Xiaomi Redmi 9, y They collected data consumption using the application My Data Manager.
YOUTUBE, DISNEY+ AND ALLTRAILS THOSE WHO CONSUME THE MOST
According to the data collected, YouTube consolidates itself as the mobile application that consumes the most data in general, reaching a total of 193 MB for five minutes of typical use. The streaming content service is positioned behind the Google platform Disney+, that can be used 150 MB during the same period of time. Likewise, the hiking application AllTrails It is also among the three that consume the most, with up to 155 MB.
It should be noted that YouTube and Disney+ are the streaming applications that use the most mobile data compared to other video applications. For example, Prime Video consume 97 MB every five minutes, only two-thirds of the data consumed by Disney + and half of that used by YouTube. The same goes for Netflix, o Apple TV, that reduce their consumption to 53 and 44 MB, respectively.
This is because, as Holafly has pointed out, streaming requires the use of very large video files. YouTube videos, for example, typically offer 30 frames of visual information per second, plus sound, metadata and processing data, which considerably increases consumption.
AllTrails It is another of the applications that uses the most data. Likewise, regarding the most popular travel ‘apps’, Waze, Hotels.com y Uber are other options that consume the most data, with an expense of 110 MB, 104 MB and 102 MB, respectively.
This consumption is related to the amount of data required by maps, the real-time transportation network and the way company servers communicate with the application as detailed by Holafly. Despite all this, it is striking that, in the case of Google Maps, consumption is reduced to 87 MB in typical use.
SOCIAL NETWORKS THAT CONSUME THE MOST
In relation to social networks, Snapchat tops the list, consuming 101 MB per five minutes. In this case, the ‘app’ automatically downloads the content of the publications in the background and stores it in the device’s cache for quick access. This is why data consumption skyrockets.
According to the results obtained, Pinterest It is the second social network that consumes the most mobile data. Specifically, reaches 85 MB every five minutes, an expense incurred, in part, by automatically playing videos when they are 50 percent downloaded.
Threads It is the third social network that uses the most data with 82 MB for every five minutes, likewise, follows TikTok (79 MB), Telegram (70 MB), Instagram (69 MB), Facebook (65 MB) and X (50 MB). However, it must be taken into consideration that the amount of data used by social media applications “may vary depending on the use,” as Holafly has pointed out.
APPLE’S DEFAULT BROWSER USES MORE DATA THAN THE REST
The data collected also details that, when using browsers, Safari, the default iOS browser, consumes the most mobile data “by far“, using 56 MB for a period of five minutes. According to the company, the explanation for this consumption may be related to the ability of developers to take advantage of Safari for the functions of third-party applications.
In this way, Safari can use 69.7 percent more data than the second most consuming browser, Vivaldiwhich spends 33 MBand more than double that Firefoxwhich reaches uses 27 MB. Microsoft Edge It is another of the browsers that consume the most with 29 MB. For its part, Google Chrome manages to reduce this data usage to 24 GB every five minutes.
OPTIMIZE MOBILE DATA USE
To reduce this application data consumption, some guidelines must be taken into account, such as disable automatic app syncas Holafly has shared. This will prevent data from starting to be downloaded from accounts that have been used on other devices to keep applications synchronized.
On the other hand, with video playback applications such as YouTube, it is recommended display the content in lower quality, for example, going from 1,080p to 240p. However, streaming sites tend to download the entire video in the background to avoid pausing playback. To curb this data usage, video quality preferences must be configured in advance in the application.
For applications of travel and maps you can resort to download the maps and necessary information via WiFi connection before starting the trip or the route you want to take. In this way, they will be able to access this data without having to use the Internet. The same happens with music and podcast applications like Spotify, which allow you to download songs and episodes to store them on your smartphone.
Additionally, you can choose to disable automatic downloads and plays of content, For example, in social networking applications, through their configuration, so that unnecessary use of data is avoided, downloading only the content that you want to see.
Regarding the use of browsers, both iOS and Android they have a saving mode in system settings which, although its effectiveness may vary between different applications, manages to limit the amount of data used.