The top 10 entertainment apps on iOS and Android in USA, Brazil, Japan, India, Germany, UK, and Korea

The times, they are a-changing, as Bob Dylan sang. Entertainment apps are changing FAST, with major global trends competing with country-specific offerings. The era of monolithic entertainment apps is over, as today’s charts show a fragmented, format-driven landscape, where niche short-form, local OTT, and AI-enhanced apps coexist with global giants. In this post, I’m going to explore the top 10 entertainment apps that are dominating in 2025, based on insights from Apptopia.

Scroll down to see insights from:

• United States
• Brazil
• Japan
• India
• Germany
• United Kingdom
• Korea

Major global trends: short-form drama, AI, and ad-supported video on demand

Short-form drama is a global sensation, with massive players like DramaBox, ReelShort, and many others. Literally every country shows a rise in short drama apps. Korea is the leader, with the most short-form apps in the top charts. Brazil and the UK also show high adoption, with multiple apps ranked.

Also, AI-driven entertainment is growing fast. We see that the UK, Germany, and Korea are leading experimentation with AI chat, character interactions, and creative UGC tools as apps like PolyBuzz, Talkie, Zeta, and Ply Buzz show early traction, especially among iOS users.

Finally, AVOD, or ad-supported video on demand, is surging. (As is FAST, or free ad-supported streaming TV, which is generally scheduled or linear rather than on-demand.) Brazil, India, and the U.S. show the most robust AVOD ecosystems, with Tubi, PlutoTV, MX Player, and JioTV frequently charting, while Germany and the UK also have strong AVOD-adjacent platforms such as Joyn and itvX.

No surprise: the leading entertainment apps include Netflix, Disney+, YouTube, and Spotify, which generally have global presences. More interesting, perhaps: each market has its own unique players that are dominating locally.

United States: top entertainment apps

There’s been a lot of change for top 10 entertainment apps in the United States.

Short-form drama apps are booming, AVOD (ad-supported video-on-demand) is surging, and the streaming giants (Netflix, Max, and Amazon Prime Video) still dominate: they’re still core entertainment destinations despite the entertainment app market saturation.

The biggest shift: the ReelShort/DramaBox phenomenon is arguably the biggest change. These apps barely existed in charts 12–18 months ago.

Brazil: top 10 entertainment apps

Brazil LOVES short-form drama, and these apps are exploding here.

DramaBox, GoodShort, ReelShort, DramaWave, and RapidTV all show up, and many are on both platforms. That’s 5 different short drama apps, showing a dramatic move towards snackable storytelling in local languages and with regional appeal.

Interestingly, Globoplay, Brazil’s homegrown streaming platform, ranks high on both platforms. Brazil is 1 of the few markets where a national competitor is prominent in top 10 entertainment app rankings.

Japan: top 10 entertainment apps

Short-form drama is winning everywhere, apparently: this is a global trend.

In Japan, local streamers dominate mainstream viewing, including TVer (a joint offering from Japan’s major broadcasters) and ABEMA. Both are top-tier Japanese services, indicating that domestic content remains deeply important. U-Next, another Japanese giant, also performs well and offers a wide content catalog including anime.

This makes sense: Japanese people like Japanese content that is available in the Japanese language. (Who wouldn’t?)

That said, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and TikTok still show up, so Japan, despite its strong local ecosystem, still embraces international platforms.

India: top entertainment apps

Jio is everywhere in India, with JioHotstar, JioCinema, and JioTV dominating the charts. These are bundled with Reliance Jio mobile and data plans, giving them a massive installed base … and showing how telco integration is driving entertainment app adoption at scale in India.

Also, local is winning in India’s massive market.

ZEE5, MX Player, Sony LIV, and Kuku TV show India’s preference for Indian-language content, especially regional TV, movies, and drama. You still see Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, and Spotify, but they’re not necessarily at the top of the heap.

Germany: top entertainment apps

Germany still loves Twitch, but only on Android, and TikTok, but only on iOS.

The top entertainment apps in Germany across iOS and Android reflect a distinctive mix of global dominance, rising AI/social trends, and strong public-service/local streaming platforms. One of those local platforms is Joyn, a German joint venture between ProSiebenSat.1 and Discovery. It’s an example of a local OTT app maintaining parity with global platforms,  showing that free, ad-supported German-language content has real staying power.

Android is heavier on AVOD and niche apps in Germany: PlutoTV and MagentaTV (from Deutsche Telekom) are Android-only, showing Android’s tendency to attract more ad-supported or bundled content platforms.

Unlike most other countries in this list, short-form drama is emerging but not dominant in Germany. ReelShort and DramaBox are both present, but they haven’t taken over the charts like in Brazil or Japan. 

UK: top 10 entertainment apps

There’s local flavor here (OK, flavour) but global giants dominate the charts thanks to English language accessibility. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Spotify, and TikTok are present across both platforms, confirming their entrenched positions in UK entertainment consumption. But national broadcasters are still highly relevant with itvX (ITV’s streaming service) appearing on both lists, and BBC Player showing strong on iOS.

These platforms offer free, ad-supported or publicly funded content — showing that UK audiences still lean into trusted, familiar brands.

Like most other countries besides Germany, short-form drama is rising fast with ReelShort and DramaBox high on both platforms. UK viewers are clearly warming to mobile-first, episodic, snackable drama formats.

Korea: top 10 entertainment apps

The top entertainment apps in South Korea across iOS and Android offer a unique blend of homegrown innovation, short-form drama obsession, and early AI adoption, layered over the familiar global entertainment stack. 

Short-form drama is exploding, with apps like DramaBox, FlickReels, NetShort, DramaWave, RapidTV, ShortMax. That’s 6 different short drama apps across both iOS and Android that dominate the charts. In fact, Korea may be the most saturated market on the planet for short-form narrative video, showing an especially strong appetite for fast, mobile-first storytelling.

Coupang Play, a streaming service from Korea’s e-commerce giant Coupang, is high on both iOS and Android. Its inclusion reflects the power of bundled services and localized content in Korea’s highly competitive OTT space.

Also, as we see in several other countries, generative AI is crossing into entertainment. For example, Zeta is an AI chat app centered around roleplay, imagination, and fandom, showcasing a growing consumer appetite for interactive narrative entertainment powered by AI.

The top apps in streaming and entertainment differ globally, but there are commonalities

In conclusion, the world of entertainment apps is constantly evolving and expanding.

With the increasing popularity of streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, YouTube TV, Hulu, and HBO Max, there are endless options for entertainment at all our fingertips. But local markets — especially those with significant scale and language differences from the US — are building their own options.

Clearly, as technology advances and mobile devices become more powerful, the future of entertainment is strongly mobile-centric. It will be interesting to see if TikTok and other mobile-first entertainment apps will expand beyond short-form entertainment and enter the potentially more lucrative (on a per-user basis anyways) long-form streaming world.