Fascinating stats released by ComScore this week showing the apparent dominance of applications in the lives of users at the expense of mobile web browsing.
In a report to highlight the launch of its Mobile Metrix 2.0 service, ComScore found US mobile users in March 2012 spent 18.5% of their mobile time browsing websites, compared to the other 81.5% of their time on applications.
The 80-20 split is mirrored for most of the top sites for mobile use, with Facebook, various Google sites and eBay all sticking to the ratio. Only Wikipedia, which has no official application, bucked the trend with 100% of use coming via the mobile web.
The data supports a recent theory put forward by TripAdvisor, which says that if a user is visiting a mobile website five or more times a year then it is probably worth creating an application.
In other words: once users get used to an application, then they will generally stick with it rather than use the mobile web version of a brand.
Meanwhile, social networks on mobiles continue to grow.
ComScore found in March 2012 that the average time spent on Facebook via a mobile (app and mobile web combined) during the month was an eye-watering 440 minutes (over seven hours).
Twitter use came in lower at just under two hours, but destination check-in service FourSquare (which generally takes no more than just a minute or so to pinpoint and log the user’s location) was two and three-quarters hours.
Relative newbie Pinterest was just 53 minutes.
NB: Mobile app people image via Shutterstock.
Related posts:
About Kevin May
I remember when you said back in 2006 (or was it 2007?) “now is the year of mobile” and you where of course right but could we ever have imagined this revolution in apps? Just think were it’s taken us in such a relatively short space of time. The mind boggles,.
I was equally fascinated when learning more about TripAdvisor’s mobile strategy as outlined by Nathan Clapton at the E4T Travel Symposium in April. Everyone must have one. A mobile strategy that is..
Apps are also a good marketing tool to increase your brand awareness, specially when you achieve to place it at a non massive category (travel, entertainment, etc).
Interesting, doesn’t mean tho’ that e.g. a hotel should have an app rather than a mobile web site – this is total usage i guess (i.e. including social and personal) , not commercial usage
The first step should always be a mobile website, but you should never stop at step one. The mobile website is a quick easy win for most sites. Then move on to a native app with more features and better integration with the mobile device it’s self.
Well if they have the budget that is
Much wider split than I would have expected…How do Web Apps get classified in the usage figures as Facebook and Gmail are Web Apps which are powered by a mobile website. Also the quality of the mobile web experience is still pretty poor so this may have a pretty big impact on these figures.
The buzz around apps has certainly taken most travel companies focus even through mobile commerce will require a mobile website.
Ultimately, I think as a business you have to support all three major consumer platforms (iOS, Android, and mobile web). While today, the majority of mobile interaction is through apps, the trend suggests that more users will be accessing services through a browser. Two things are contributing to that trend. 1) mobile browsers are getting better (& bigger) and 2) businesses are starting to invest more in mobile web design which means the mobile web experience will begin to catch up to the native app experience and 3) consumers don’t necessarily enjoy downloading apps, so if they get a great experience through the mobile web browser — well, even better!
I would expect over the next couple of years, mobile web will become more important and you’ll see a gradual shift away from app usage to mobile web usage.
I’d be interested in hearing what other readers think: If you were building an online service today what would you build first: a native app, a mobile web experience, or a desktop web experience? I realize that “it depends” on what kind of solution we’re talking about, so certainly that’s going to be a factor. And which platform will be most important 2-3 years from now?
This time, I would like to kindly disagree with Tnooz: if you analyze which mobile apps people spent 80% of mobile usage time on, you will quickly understand how flawed these stats are, since spending time is not the most accurate stat as far as mobile usage is concerned. Yes, people did spend a lot of time on Words with Friends, Angry Birds, Facebook app, and other apps, but they also booked over 2.4 percent of all U.S. online travel bookings ($2.6 billion) in 2011 via the mobile Web! Most of these bookings were not done via apps but via mobile websites. Google reports that hotel mobile searches have increased by 3,000 percent from 2010 to 2011 and that now over 20 percent of all searches are conducted via mobile devices.
Here at HeBS Digital we are constantly being asked by our hotel clients whether it makes sense for a hotel to develop its own mobile app or if the hotel should focus on their mobile website. From the HeBS Digital’s 5th Annual Benchmark Survey results, we can see that fewer hoteliers were planning for an iPhone app last year: 8.9 percent versus 24.1 percent in 2010.
In my view, hotels do not need a mobile app if they are a single-property, an independent hotel or resort, a franchised property, or a smaller and mid-size hotel chain and multi-property company. These hotel companies are better off focusing on building and enhancing their mobile websites and promoting the mobile site via mobile marketing initiatives, and here is why:
• Vast majority of users (90.15%) prefer mobile browsing vs. mobile apps (CEM4Mobile Analytics)
• Apps are very expensive to build, maintain, and promote
• Apps are device specific
• Not indexable by the search engines!
The Mobile App Check has identified the most popular mobile apps and how they are used in the United States. Excluding Google Maps, Weather.com and web search apps, the rest of the Top 10 apps were in the social media, entertainment and gaming realms. Not even a single travel app made it into the Top 10 list. Where is Expedia’s app? Hilton’s app? American Airlines’ app? A hotel company, be it an independent or franchised hotel or resort, a small chain or multi-property company, has no chance of creating an app that can squeeze through the mobile app clutter and find its way to the mobile user’s smartphone.