As much as the article is from cointelegraph, but it's half-baked and disappointing. It provides no data to show how popular the apps are. I don't have an Apple device, so I decided to check out Google playstore since Android has way more users than iOS and the trading apps aren't even anywhere close to the social media apps.
Facebook - 5B+ downloads
YouTube - 5B+ downloads
Tiktok - 1B+ downloads
....
Coinbase - 10M+ Downloads
Robinhood - 10M+ Downloads
So I don't know what cointelegraph is basing on.
Probably Robinhood and Coinbase was on top for a specific time and not for all time because we all know how social media works today, and its very popular compare to trading apps.
Cointelegraph most of the time are releasing articles without a proper investigation or analysis just like this one, I doubt that Trading apps will ever take over those giant social media platforms, even traders have their own social accounts but not all social media users have trading account, so this is too impossible to happen.
Cointelegraph is like any other newspaper, they try to attract people with sensationalistic headlines! So most of their articles are pure trash, except big headlines, there's nothing else to see!
I don't doubt, treading apps will never be more popular than social media platforms. Simply kids from early ages have accounts on various platforms, older people are using it for fun and staying in touch with others... it's not everything in trading and making profits, and for sure it's not for everyone!
As you say, these stats (if true at all?!) are just for some time frame, and maybe due to this hype, more people are getting involved... but we should stay real, it's near to impossible for any trading app to become more popular than some giant social media platform!