Games continue to lead the way for most popular apps.

As smartphone users we really are spoilt for choice when it comes to the type and variety of applications we have to choose from but it appears there is one type of app that continues to be a firm favourite. According to new research from Nielson, it’s games that are clearly the most popularapps with smartphone users. Across a 30 day period they found that 64% of smartphone owners played a game on their device, weather apps took second place with 60% and social networking apps came in 3rd place with 56%.

The research also showed that the apps we’re most likely to spend our hard earned cash on is also games, with 93% willing to pay for a game, followed closely by entertainment (87%) and productivity apps (84%). The three most popular operating systems which we play our games on are Apples iOS, followed by Android and the Windows Phone 7.

One final suprising statistic was the amount of time we actually spend playing games on our smartphones. The industry average currently sits at 7.8 hours per month, yet Android gamers are clocking in an average of 9.3 hours, whilst iPhone users are highest at 14.7 hours per month. With the amount of games available to download across the various app stores constantly growing, it certainly seems that the title of most popular app is safe with games for the moment.