The past year has drawn significant attention to the importance of maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle. This has brought about a significant spike in the popularity of digital health apps, more than ever individuals are seeking easier and more convenient methods of tracking their health, but, this can be difficult to manage, especially when stuck indoors.
Lenstore’s recent study shows more people than ever are reaching for their smartphones to track their health. Lenstore analyzed the most popular apps over the past year, backed by search volume, to determine the most popular ways to track our health from our phones.
What Is The Most Popular Health App In South Africa?
2020 was a big year when it came to keeping ourselves healthy, but also for developments in tech. The use of smartphone apps to keep ourselves fit has been on the rise this past year.
Here are the top 10 most popular health apps in South Africa
|
Rank |
Category |
App |
App Store Rating |
App Store Downloads |
Play Store Rating |
Play Store Downloads |
Search Volume |
|
1 |
Fitbit |
Sport |
4.1 |
500,000 |
3.7 |
50,000,000 |
22,200 |
|
2 |
Twilight |
Eye |
N/A |
N/A |
4.6 |
10,000,000 |
22,200 |
|
3 |
Strava |
Sport |
4.7 |
700,000 |
4.2 |
10,000,000 |
14,800 |
|
4 |
Sleep |
Sleep |
4.1 |
N/A |
3.8 |
10,000 |
8,100 |
|
5 |
Forest |
Mental Health |
4.8 |
60,000 |
4.4 |
10,000,000 |
6,600 |
|
6 |
Sleep |
Atmosphere |
4.1 |
7,000 |
4.8 |
1,000,000 |
5,400 |
|
7 |
My fitness pal |
Diet |
4.8 |
60,000 |
4.4 |
10,000,000 |
4,400 |
|
8 |
Maya |
Female Health |
4.7 |
20,000 |
4.8 |
5,000,000 |
3,600 |
|
9 |
Intellect |
Mental Health |
4.7 |
8,000 |
4.8 |
1,000,000 |
3,600 |
|
10 |
Eye Test |
Eye |
N/A |
N/A |
3.9 |
1,000,000 |
3,600 |
It is no surprise to see Fitbit dominate other fitness apps in terms of popularity. With over 20,000 people searching for the app and over 50,000,000 downloads in the Playstore. Twilight follows closely behind in second place also with over 20,000 searches per month.
Mental Health
Mental health apps such as Forest and Intellect rank highly in the top 10, showing that a significant proportion of health-conscious people are focusing on their mental well-being this year. With 4.8-star ratings on the App Store, it’s easy to understand why these are the stand-out apps in the mental health space.
The mental health apps don’t just help benefit patients, although they can also provide useful data to physicians, therapists, and health care experts. Since most people carry their phones wherever the apps are able to collect valuable information and record valuable data. Most of these apps focus specifically on depression and anxiety disorders.
Future Of Technology And Mental Health
Mobile mental health support may be complicated but very effective. They are many apps available and consumers may hesitate to choose the correct ones to use, so doing your research and see the reviews on each, and it would be best to use the one with the best reviews. Technology is a good private start for those who have never really prioritized their mental health which is available 24/7.
Niamh Walsh, Nutritionist, Lifestyle Coach, and a Pharmacist
“This year, in particular, I have seen people taking a greater interest in health apps as a way to feel more empowered in regard to their health and wellbeing. COVID-19 made us more aware of our health and with lockdown restrictions meaning the closure of gyms, this further sparked people’s interest in health apps as a means of staying fit and healthy from home. In general, people have become a lot more health-conscious as a result of the pandemic.”
