As 2015 draws to a close, Nielsen Holdings N.V., a global information and measurement company, released its latest report that covers digital trends for 2015 (via TechCrunch). The report includes the top smartphone apps for the U.S. as well as which operating systems have captured the biggest market share in the U.S. this year.

Top smartphone apps in the U.S. for 2015

Based on the average number of unique users, Facebook has once again captured the number one spot as the top app installed on U.S. smartphones. The Facebook app has seen a growth of 8 percent from 2014, and its average unique users each month has grown to 126.7 million.

However, Facebook’s Messenger app has seen the biggest growth since last year, with the Nielsen report showing a 31 percent increase in unique users this year. This is a slower rate than last year when the Facebook Messenger app grew by 242 percent after the social network forced its users to install the standalone Messenger app and removed chat functionality from its main app.

Facebook Messenger claimed third spot with 96.4 million average unique users each month, with YouTube claiming second spot with 97.6 million average unique users each month.

Another contender for the fastest growing app for 2015 is Apple Musi, launched at the end of June. Given that Apple Music is just shy of being six months old, it is no surprise that it saw a 26 percent increase. The report shows Apple Music has 54.5 million average unique users each month.

Google apps claim the next four spots on the list, with Google Search (95 million), Google Play (89.7 million), Google Maps (87.7 million) and Gmail (75.1 million).

Instagram claimed spot number eight with 55.4 million average unique users each month and saw increased usage for 2015 with the report showing growth of 23 percent. Apple claims the last two spots with Apple Music (54.5 million) and Apple Maps (46.4 million).

Top mobile operating systems by market share in the U.S.

This year saw mobile subscribers increase slightly to 80 percent by the end of September, compared to 78 percent smartphone penetration at the start of 2015.

When it comes to which operating system the U.S. favor, Android still claims the majority market share with 52.6 percent, while iOS claims 42.7 percent. Just 2.8 percent of smartphone users in the U.S. owned a Windows device in 2015, while Blackberry still only managed to claim a small market share of 0.7 percent.

These stats are limited to the U.S. market only and Nielsen based the results on survey data of 30,000-plus mobile subscribers, 9,000 of which have mobile measurement software installed on their devices.

Main image credit: Kārlis Dambrāns, Flickr