Whether you’re on BlackBerry, Android, iPhone, or some other smartphone platform, if you’ve got something to do, chances are, there’s an app to help you do it. With smartphone usage on the up and up and app stores from iPhone and Android growing ever faster and adding more features at an almost daily pace, there’s no doubt that mobile app usage is the new metric for smartphone success. To that end, Nielsen’s new “The State of Mobile Apps” report breaks down what the major smartphone platforms are seeing in the mobile space. Here’s a bit of a spoiler – iPhone users tend to have the most apps installed on their phones.
First, the obvious. Smartphones are getting more and more mainstream. At the end of 2008, only 14% of American wireless subscribers had a smartphone to call their own. In Q3 of 2009, that percentage increased to 19%. The most recent quarter for which we have solid data is Q4 2009, and the numbers indicate that 21% of US wireless customers are in cahoots with the smartphone revolution. That’s an impressive figure that’s sure to get more and more impressive.
So, what are all those smartphone users doing? Well, Nielsen surveyed 4,200 people who had downloaded an app in the past 30 days and found that consumers have been flocking to games/gaming apps most frequently. News/weather was the second most-used category and maps/navigation/search ranked as the third most-used. And indeed, Facebook and Google Maps are the two apps that are consistently the most used across all smartphone platforms.
In affirmation of the iPhone AppStore’s size and breadth, the Nielsen report says that iPhone users have the highest number of installed apps when compared to other smarpthone users. The average number of apps per iPhone is an impressive 37. Android users average 22 per handset. Palm, surprisingly, comes in third place with an average of 14. Windows Mobile sees an average of 13, with BlackBerry seeing something like 10 apps per handset.
So, how many apps do you have on your smartphone? Is Google Maps or Facebook included in your Top 3 most-used apps? Do you skew heavily towards gaming on your smartphone? Let us know below!
[Via: Nielsen]