Nielsen on U.S. Smartphone and Mobile App Growth

Nielsen:

Roughly a year ago when we summarized the state of smartphones at the Appnation conference, less than 40 percent of mobile subscribers in the U.S. had smartphones. Today, one in two mobile subscribers has a smartphone and that figure is moving steadily upwards.

In other words, there is a lot of headroom remaining. It’s a growth market.

By most measures, it has been the year of the App once again, driven mostly by the rise of Android and iOS users who have more than doubled in a year and account for 88 percent of those who have downloaded an app in the past 30 days. In just a year, the average number of apps per smartphone has jumped 28 percent, from 32 apps to 41. Not only is the 2012 smartphone owner downloading more apps, they are increasingly spending more time using them vs. using the mobile web — about 10 percent more than last year.

Hence the agitation of web-centric companies like Facebook and Google.

★ Thursday, 17 May 2012