New York, Feb 23 (IANS): The social networking giant Facebook is the undisputed leader in mobile advertising and the top marketing option for app developers, a new report has revealed.

AppsFlyer -- an Israel-based mobile marketing analytics and attribution platform -- tracked 2.5 billion app installs from October 2015 to January 2016.

It found that Facebook led app installs across metrics including geographic region, app user retention and gaming versus non-gaming apps, marketingdive.com reported.

"A consistent placing in the global top five media sources for retention, coupled with its unrivaled scale, place the social giant number one in the power rankings for every category and region among platforms included in the study," the report declared.

According to another study done by eMarketer - a US-based digital marketing, media and commerce research company -- mobile app install ads were expected to reach $3 billion last year, accounting for more than 10 percent of mobile ad budgets with an 80 percent year-over-year increase in spending.

Last year, Chris Cunningham, global head of mobile and brand partnerships at apps data and analytics company IronSource, said that the app-install ecosystem is responsible for growing that space for Facebook, Google and every other company and gaming companies and lifestyle apps are driving mobile budgets.

Mobile accounts for 80 percent of the social network's advertising revenue per its latest earnings report, up from 69 percent year-over-year.