Which device did you use to order food last time? We'll guess it on the first try (maybe the second).
Mobile devices have undeniably become the primary channel through which customers interact with restaurants and food services — the way they browse menus, pay for orders, arrange delivery, track couriers on the map, accumulate loyalty points, hunt for discounts, and share reviews.
In 2025, foodtech mobile apps demonstrated record growth: last year they were downloaded 2.4 billion times — that's 13% more than in 2024. For food and beverage businesses, this is no longer just an "experiment" or an additional sales channel, but a critical part of the customer experience and operational model that makes a measurable contribution to revenue, customer acquisition, and retention.
The market has matured, user behavior has become stable, and mobile apps have become commonplace: customers look for fast order processing, convenient payment methods, delivery tracking features, and personalized offers. At the same time, user expectations continue to rise, and one-size-fits-all solutions increasingly fail to meet business needs.
Up-to-date statistics and trend analysis help see not just general market numbers, but specific patterns that help understand which features are actually used, which scenarios are becoming standard, and where investments in mobile app development deliver measurable results. This data can become the foundation for making decisions about creating your own digital products. And the beginning of 2026 is a logical moment to do this.
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Global Mobile App Market Overview
At this point, mobile devices have already become the primary way to access the internet: as of December 2025, 53.52% of consumers worldwide use them, compared to 45.17% who still prefer desktops. Where there is demand, supply follows — so businesses seeking audiences increasingly don't limit themselves to websites and release mobile apps.
This affects the dynamics of the global mobile application market, which continues to grow steadily, as well as the amount of money flowing through it. According to various estimates, its size in 2025 ranges from $298.40 to $330.61 billion. Under optimistic forecasts, in the next 10 years it will grow almost 4 times — to $1,230.23 billion in 2035. Just to put this into perspective: these numbers are comparable to the current GDP of the Netherlands or Turkey. Imagine a mobile app market the size of an entire European country's economy!
In 2025, the number of new app downloads in the App Store and Google Play reached 149 billion — that's approximately 284,000 downloads per minute and 0.8% more than the previous year.
Total hours spent in mobile apps on iOS & Android also show growth: compared to 2024, this number increased by 3.8% and reached 5.3 trillion (and that's not even counting third-party Android in China and other markets). Scaled to the Earth’s population, that's on average over 600 hours for every person on Earth — about 25 days a year or 1.64 hours per day just in mobile apps.
But babies, seniors, and many others don't use smartphones, so the real number is even higher: according to Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile 2026, the average time spent in mobile apps per user is about 3.6 hours per day. Now check your screen time — got even more interesting, huh?
On the whole, a single user interacts with about 34 unique apps per month and 10 per day. A year earlier, these numbers were 5.4% lower.
Why does this matter for foodtech businesses and restaurants? These mobile app market insights give us an understanding of context: mobile apps are an integral part of everyday user experience. But these are just general numbers — so next, let’s zoom in on how restaurant mobile app usage patterns are developing.
Mobile App Usage in Restaurants and Foodtech
Last year, the number of mobile app downloads in the food & drink category reached a record 2.4 billion, demonstrating 13% year-over-year growth. Food Delivery Services and Fast Food & Fast Casual Restaurants grew most actively: these two app types accounted for 77% of all category downloads worldwide, growing at a collective 15% YoY.
In the most popular subgenre, Food Delivery Services, we've observed a rollercoaster for the last 7 years. During the pandemic, they experienced a boom in popularity, but after COVID restrictions were lifted, demand declined — as people returned to dining out. However, back in 2023, the trend reversed, and since then this category continues to grow steadily. According to Sensor Tower estimates, delivery apps are even now surging past their pandemic peak.
Global leaders in the food delivery segment are shaping another important trend, best illustrated by the European market. Once highly fragmented and dominated by numerous regional players, the market is now consolidating. Several large-scale mergers and acquisitions have played a key role here: DoorDash completed its deal with Deliveroo, Uber acquired a controlling stake in Trendyol, and Prosus bought Just Eat Takeaway.
From a mobile app perspective, this resulted in the top five companies controlling 70% of downloads in Europe in Q1 2025, with DoorDash Inc. brands alone accounting for 12%.
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We've witnessed significant industry consolidation, where a large share of deliveries is handled not by individual establishments, but by aggregators. But does this mean users are deleting all apps except Uber Eats from their phones, and restaurants are becoming hostages to high commissions? That would still be an overstatement.
As we wrote above, the total number of apps used daily continues to grow, and the food & drinks segment is no exception. The average user relies on multiple services in parallel: compares prices, delivery terms and times, distance to the nearest restaurant or takeaway. A significant portion of each app's audience overlaps with at least one competitor — this applies both to giants like DoorDash and to smaller aggregators, individual food franchises, and restaurant chains.
Which brings us to the advantages mobile technologies can offer players across the restaurant and food industry — helping them stay competitive.
Turning App Statistics into Product Decisions
How can restaurants and developers use statistical data and trends to increase customer engagement in foodtech apps and boost business efficiency? Let's break it down with several metrics.
First, let's look at data on mobile app engagement trends and scores across categories — what percentage of total monthly active users (MAU) return to the app daily (DAU).
How should restaurant businesses interpret this data? It depends on your point of view: the glass is either half full or half empty. On the one hand, the food & drink category sits near the bottom of the rankings: these aren't apps that the average user opens every day. On the other hand, roughly every 8th or 9th person uses them daily — and that's not so little.
Here are mobile app growth statistics to back that up: in 2025, the Food Blogs, Coupons & Recipe Resources subgenre experienced a remarkable 52% surge in downloads in the USA compared to the previous year. This indicates that people are increasingly trying to save money and cook food at home rather than order delivery, takeaway, or visit a restaurant — but they can still be attracted by value-driven offers, which are currently in higher demand.
That said, this question lies in the plane of marketing, pricing, and sales incentives. Let’s get back to the tech component.
How Can You Increase Repeat Orders with the Right App Features?
Feature | How It Works | Why It Matters |
Built-in loyalty mechanics (points, cashbacks, tiers, and other perks) combined with gamified triggers (challenges, streaks, progress bars, spin-to-win, etc.) that reward users for engagement activities — from placing orders to inviting friends and leaving reviews | Creates a habit loop: users return to the app to earn and claim rewards, which increases repeat orders, DAU/MAU, and LTV | |
Push Notifications with Personalized Offers | Pop-up notifications that appear on the screen even when the app is closed — such as discount promo codes or news about a new restaurant opening nearby | Bring users back into the app and nudge them toward placing an order through relevant offers, increasing engagement and repeat sessions |
Real-Time Order Tracking | A screen showing the current order status: whether it’s been accepted, prepared, where the courier is on the map, and how long until they reach the door | Increases user trust and reduces support workload, indirectly increasing repeat app visits |
Users rate dishes and leave feedback after each order, view their past reviews, and browse ratings from other customers | Captures feedback before it goes public, allows the business to resolve issues quickly, and helps build trust |
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Let's ground this in a real case and examine how such features can drive user activity and impact business profitability. The first case is Beerpoint — a loyalty mobile app we developed for a large retail chain selling beverages and snacks.
What started as a "plastic card replacement" turned into a full-scale customer engagement ecosystem and a community-driven product: by November 10, 2025, the app reached 385K+ active users, with 4M+ purchases processed through the system and 64K reviews and product ratings left by customers.
A major growth lever came later — a gamification release featuring a Wheel-of-Fortune mechanic that rewards users based on spend thresholds. Each spin grants one of six rotating bonuses: extra loyalty points, discount coupons, free products, or seasonal gifts selected by store managers.
This is exactly how loyalty and gamification features drive not just app engagement, but real business outcomes: higher purchase frequency, bigger baskets, and measurable revenue growth. If this case piqued your interest, you’ll find even more ideas for boosting app engagement and retention in this article.
Mobile app for beverage and snacks saler
Read the full story
Now let’s look at a delivery-focused scenario, where our engagement features keep users active and returning — here’s how we approached it in Yapoki, a fast-growing restaurant brand.
In this project, we focused on creating an engaging ecosystem within the app. Besides standard dish cards, cart, and order history, we implemented several advanced features:
- Promo code functionality with different logic: some activate a discount on a certain type of product, others make items free;
- A referral system that rewards users with discounts for sharing install links with friends;
- Payment options allowing loyalty bonuses to cover 100% or 50% of the total order value;
- An order status broadcast screen, where you can not only track whether your dish is being prepared or already handed over for delivery, but also watch the kitchen via live cameras.
Yapoki: mobile delivery app for the future enterprise
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Let’s look at another metric — session length. It shows how much time a user spends in the app per one visit. In different categories, things look like this:
And although Food & Drink apps are again at the bottom of this chart, this is actually good — because time to order should be as short as possible. If the app is convenient and intuitive, users complete actions quickly: find the right dish, repeat a previous order, check loyalty bonuses or delivery status. Long sessions usually signal navigation problems: most likely, the customer is confused in the menu and doesn't understand how to arrange delivery.
How Can You Increase Conversions with a Faster, Frictionless Ordering Flow?
Feature | How It Works | Why It Matters |
Thoughtful UX and Navigation | Clear menu structure, filters, fast search, intuitive category navigation | Reduces order completion time, lowers drop-off, and increases conversion |
Quick Re-Ordering | Ability to repeat previous orders or add favorite items to the cart without browsing the full menu again: the user sees them at the top of the screen and can arrange delivery in just a couple of clicks | Shortens the path to purchase to 1–2 clicks, increasing order frequency and conversion, especially among regular customers |
Saved Preferences & Favorites | Saved restaurants and dishes in the “Favorites” tab, delivery addresses and payment methods auto-filled during order checkout | Speeds up repeat orders and reduces friction, increasing conversion and purchase frequency |
Dynamic Recommendations | AI-driven selection of dishes and restaurants based on order history and time of day | Accelerates decision-making and increases average check |
Flexible Payment Options | Support for multiple payment methods beyond traditional cards: digital wallets (Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, PayPal), instant bank transfers (Revolut, Wise), in-app loyalty points, vouchers — and combinations of them (e.g., 50% with bonuses + 50% with card) | Removes the final friction point before purchase: users complete orders faster and don't abandon carts due to missing payment options |
Quick Sign-Up and Log-In with Phone Verification | Users enter a phone number, receive one-time password (auto-filled on most devices), and they’re done — from there, all data (addresses, payment methods, favorites) stays linked to the number and accessible from any device | Cuts sign-up and log-in time to seconds, reduces first-order friction, and eliminates "forgot password" drop-offs for users; protects the business from fake accounts making fraudulent orders and opens more direct communication channels: SMS, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc. |
Live Activities (iOS) / Live Updates (Android) | Real-time widget on the lock screen that shows the order status (e.g., "Preparing" → "Courier on the way" → "Delivered") and updates automatically without opening the app | Reduces "Where is my order?" anxiety and support load, improves perceived service quality, and strengthens brand recall |
User interaction scenarios and main paths are the first thing to pay attention to when creating a mobile app for a restaurant, delivery, or other similar services. That's exactly what we did when Sizl came to us — a dark kitchen startup from Chicago.
The app needed a rebuild: we were rewriting it from cool but quite rare Kotlin Multiplatform to React Native to expand possibilities for further scaling and adding new functions and services. At the same time, we revised the user flow and organized the design, whose initial version didn't always match the actual functionality.
Our team thought through user interaction scenarios and kitchen station workflows, and cart logic, to organize a full-fledged design system and work out UX for two new features: pickup and event ordering.
We also explored an "outside-the-app" UX improvement with the Live Activities feature for iOS, so users could follow order progress from the lock screen and tap to jump back into the app when needed.
Live Activities in Foodtech: How One Feature Solves Three Business Problems
For more on this solution, its ROI, and implementation details, see this article
Altogether, these features and improvements create a seamless experience that benefits both the network and its users.
Sizl: How we became the tech partner for the Chicago-based Dark Kitchen Network
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Engagement metrics and user behavior directly depend on what product and technological solutions underlie the app. But these solutions don't exist in a vacuum — they're influenced by global mobile app trends that shape user expectations and set new standards for food & drink apps.
Key Trends Shaping Mobile App Usage
Looking at the mobile app market as a whole, Fortune Business Insights highlights the following trends for 2026:
Growing Popularity of IoT and Smart Device Integration
Contrary to stereotypical notions, smart devices aren't just about home automation and fitness trackers. The trend applies to other industries, and food and drink is no exception. In foodtech mobile apps, IoT technology can be used for:
- Real-time delivery tracking. Courier GPS data feeds into the app so users can track their movement on the map and the delivery status of their order.
- IoT-triggered pushes. Pop-ups are tied to real events: for example, when the courier is approaching the delivery address, the user receives a push about it.
We observe this trend firsthand as we increasingly receive requests for courier-facing mobile apps — the very layer that feeds real-time delivery data into customer-facing experiences. They mostly come from food & beverage businesses without brick-and-mortar locations (e.g. virtual restaurants — dark, ghost, and cloud kitchens) that rely on technology to replace the physical touchpoint. Such companies are doubling down on automation to ensure their operations are transparent, efficient, and pleasant for people at every stage of the delivery.
And of course, IoT opens great opportunities for smart agriculture and inventory management.
IoT in FoodTech: Unlocking Opportunities for Businesses
We talked about this in more detail here
Rising Cybersecurity Risks to Hinder Market Growth
Why is this a problem for the mobile market? Because apps increasingly process sensitive personal and financial data, and foodtech products are particularly exposed here. Every month, media headlines surface about another delivery service's database being sold on the dark web.
On top of that, GDPR and CCPA standards are becoming stricter and impose a significant operational burden on developers, especially when it comes to small and mid-sized businesses.
We talked about why cybersecurity matters for restaurants and how AI solutions help reduce threats and manage risks in one of our previous articles.
Expansion of mCommerce to Create Lucrative Growth Opportunities
Mobile commerce is gaining momentum: users increasingly make purchases directly from apps rather than through websites or physical stores.
The growth of in-app purchases, subscription models, and integrated mobile wallets provides developers with multiple monetization channels and also increases user engagement.
Retail App Development Guide You Can’t Ignore in 2025-2026
We covered this topic in more detail in our retail app development guide
How does this trend show up in foodtech? Users are spending more money in mobile apps, becoming more accustomed to high-quality experiences and, as a consequence, increasingly expecting certain features. For example, advanced payment options: not just Visa and Mastercard, but also Apple Pay, QR codes, crypto wallets, and more.
To these points from Fortune Business Insights, we'd like to add one more trend that will definitely shape the mobile app market in 2026.
AI-driven Personalization and Recommendations
How can a trends roundup not mention artificial intelligence? The technology continues to develop rapidly and remains in the headlines.
Both in the Food & Beverage industry and in other sectors, AI and ML help strengthen marketing and promotion, gather important insights about consumer behavior, forecast demand, automate countless routine processes...
Covering all use cases would take a separate deep dive. Luckily, we've already written one.
AI for Restaurants: 5 Practical Ways to Increase Profit and Reduce Costs
Learn more about AI capabilities for restaurants and HoReCa here
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Where to Go from Here: How to Build a Restaurant App
Mobile app usage stats for 2026 aren’t just "interesting numbers" — they show how quickly customer expectations are becoming the standard. People spend hours inside apps every day, regularly switch between multiple services, and are increasingly sensitive to friction: if ordering takes too long, payments feel unsafe, or loyalty doesn’t bring real value, users churn.
For restaurants and foodtech, this means two things:
Competing only through aggregators gets harder. Restaurateurs often wonder: why build your own app when you can integrate with dozens of third-party services? Sure, such "ordering hubs" really do have lots of pros: they save time and money on building a solution and on customer support, and help you get to the market faster — more on this topic here.
But aggregators are outside your control — you don’t interact with customers directly, can’t prevent errors or lost orders, and miss out on personalization. We compared both approaches at the link, so you can weigh the arguments for and against.
Winning apps are built around real user behavior. The most in-demand interaction patterns repeat across projects: quick re-order, saved preferences, flexible payments, transparent order tracking, value-driven offers, and personalization that feels helpful rather than intrusive. Not every restaurant needs "all features at once", but every restaurant needs a product that removes friction and supports day-to-day operations.
The best place to start mobile development is not with code, but with clarity: what your guests do most often, where they drop off, and what will move the needle for revenue and retention. That’s exactly why we usually begin with the discovery phase: aligning business goals with user needs, mapping critical flows, planning integrations (POS, delivery, CRM), and making high-level architectural decisions that won’t limit scaling later on.
Of course, defining "minimal" requires research before committing a budget. A lean version only works if it's built on solid assumptions — and those come from talking to users early and often. We share frameworks and lessons learned in our MVP & market research blog section. And one more often-overlooked tip: when your outsourced development team participates in customer discovery, they catch edge cases earlier and propose better solutions. We explain why this matters here.
At dev.family, we build custom mobile apps for restaurants, food franchises, chains, dark kitchens, and more with a focus on measurable outcomes (conversion, retention, repeat orders), not just "a beautiful app" — though, of course, our foodtech projects do look great. If you’re planning a restaurant mobile app (or rebuilding an existing one), we can help you define the right scope and turn it into a product customers actually use.
Got 30 minutes? Tell us about your restaurant, and we'll suggest which app features will actually boost your ROI
Max B. CEO
