On average, smartphone users have about 30 apps on their smartphones, with the most used apps being messaging, social media, and streaming entertainment.
These also happen to some of the biggest guzzlers of battery power, according to a study of Android phones from AVG Technologies.
When it comes to overall performance, Facebook tops the list.
| Overall Performance Impact Rank | App Name | Category | Developer |
| 1 | Social | ||
| 2 | Spotify | Music & Audio | Spotify Ltd. |
| 3 | Social | ||
| 4 | Path | Social | Path Inc. |
| 5 | Amazon Shopping | Retail | Amazon |
Apps that run automatically when a phone boots up, whether you open them or not are among some of the biggest offenders in that category and they include Facebook, Kik, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and RetailMeNot.
They are constantly running in the background, checking for updates and messages.
In the category of apps that don’t start automatically, Amazon, Kindle, Snapchat, LINE, Spotify, Netflix and Amazon Shopping give battery life the biggest beating when you’re actively using them, unlike Facebook, which drains your battery whether you’re using it or not.
The study looked at mobile games separately because of the huge number of apps in this segment and found that Candy Crush Soda Saga, Candy Crush Saga, Clash of Clans, Crossy Road and Solitaire were the biggest power-suckers.
The full report, which breaks down the performance impact further according to battery drain, storage consumption and data traffic, can be downloaded from AVG Now.
To conserve battery life, AVG offered a few tips: limit push notifications, reduce frequency of refreshes, turn off connectivity (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS) when not in use, dim brightness, and disable background location tracking.
