Time Spent with Mobile Apps rivals TV

Consumers continue to spend more time with mobile apps, thanks in large part to the growing number of minutes spent with mobile games. According to December data from mobile app analytics company Flurry, US consumers spent an average 127 minutes on mobile apps per day. That’s up 35% from 94 minutes spent per day in December 2011.

Flurry stacked up time spent with mobile apps next to the web and TV. Although it didn’t take into account multitasking—which research shows is very common among mobile app users—Flurry findings indicated that US consumers spent more time in apps than on the web. And their time spent with mobile apps (127 minutes) was nipping at the heels of their time spent watching TV (168 minutes).

Flurry broke down mobile app usage into categories, and found that mobile gaming led the charge, accounting for 43% of the time spent with mobile apps worldwide. Social networking came in second, accounting for 26% of consumers’ time, and entertainment and utility followed, each with 10%.

Although Flurry didn’t compare mobile app usage with mobile web browsing, a study by Keynote Competitive Research from the first half of 2012 suggests that consumers might also spend more time per day with apps than they do with the mobile web. The study showed that most US smartphone users (60%) accessed the mobile web from their phone for less than an hour a day. Only 29% used it for more than an hour per day. Tablet users tended to use the web for longer periods of time—37% did so more than an hour per day.

When it comes to using mobile apps, though, the findings point to longer time spent. Forty-five percent of tablet and smartphone users used apps for less than an hour per day, while more than half (54%) used apps for more than an hour. This comes close to Flurry’s data, which suggested consumers on average used apps for a little more than two hours per day.

According to Flurry, time spent with mobile gaming adds up. The company calculated that the time spent within gaming apps equated to 55 minutes per day.

eMarketer’s tracking of US mobile gamers suggests that the group will make up 42% of mobile phone users by the end of the year, and 32% of the US population. By 2016, eMarketer anticipates that mobile gamers will represent 67% of mobile phone users and 53% of the population.

For more information at http://www.emarketer.com