Mobile Apps Overtaking Web Browsers
According to Zokem, a Finnish mobile analytics firm, mobile applications are on the verge of leapfrogging mobile Web browsers as the most popular activity on mobile phones. This is corroborated by new information released by comScore.
Applications already account for half of all data traffic (volume, or packets) and 46 percent of data usage (time spent accessing content). Web browsers account for the remaining portions of each activity.
App stores and the growing prevalence of pre-embedded, easy-to-use mobile apps are driving the increasing use of apps.
“Only a few years ago Web browsing was about 70-80 percent of smartphone-driven Internet usage, but now it seems to be changing,” said Dr. Hannu Verkasalo, executive chairman of Zokem.
Though Zokem’s data shows that Web browsers remain the most popular form of accessing data on mobile devices, the tides are expected to shift very soon.
The latest figures from comScore reflect a similar trend. In July, sending text messages to another phone was the most popular form of mobile content usage with 66.0 percent of mobile subscribers saying so. This was followed by using a browser with 33.6 percent, up 2.5 percentage points from 31.1 percent in April.
Using downloaded apps was third with 31.4 percent in July, up 1.6 points from 29.8 percent in April.
Playing games (22.3 percent), accessing social networking sites or blogs (21.8 percent) and listening to music on a mobile phone (14.5 percent) were also popular mobile content usage activities.
According to comScore, RIM remained the top smart-phone platform in July with 39.3 percent of the U.S. market, down 1.8 percentage points from 41.1 percent in April. Apple followed with 23.8 percent, down 1.3 points from 25.1 percent in April.
Google was the big winner, finishing July with 17.0 percent of the market, up 5.0 points from 12.0 percent in April.
Microsoft trailed with 11.8 percent (down 2.2 points), followed by Palm with 4.9 percent (unchanged).
Besides obviously quicker growth, Android has another leg up on iPhone OS: updates.
Localytics dug into its mobile app analytics reports to compare the upgrade rate for the Apple iPhone 3GS and Motorola Droid. It found that while 30 percent of iPhone users upgraded in the first two days, Droid owners had to wait until around day seven. After two weeks, 96 percent of Droids were upgraded to Android 2.2, while 56 percent of iPhone 3GS users were upgraded to iOS 4. Two months afterward, 20 percent of iPhone 3GS users still weren’t upgraded to iOS 4.
Sources:</strong
http://www.localytics.com/blog/post/why-are-apple-iphone-users-slow-to-upgrade/
