There are thousands and thousands of apps for any OS made for mobile devices. Download numbers are impressive, but we tend to overstate the enthusiasm people have for these software pieces.
The first app store was launched by Apple in 2008. In June, the company announced that more than 75 billion apps have been downloaded at the moment. Moreover, the next month was Apple Store’s best month in history in terms of revenue, Quartz notes. So finding out that most smartphone users download zero apps per month is surprising.
Comscore released a report shedding more light onto app downloading and usage among U.S mobile users. The results are based on data from the whole second quarter of 2014 and involved only users of 18+ years old. The most intriguing result is that almost two thirds of smartphone users do not download any app during. Eight percent of the surveyed users downloaded one app per month and almost 9 percent – 2 apps. Percentages drop further on.
The results clearly convey that app stores and app developers thrive due to a minority of app enthusiasts. The top 7 percent of users download half of all the apps from app stores during one month.
The most used app by U.S. smartphone owners (you know which one) intends to monetize user data in every possible way.
Most smartphone users download zero apps but the rest counterbalance
According to Comscore, users spend 52 percent of their time with digital media, a consistent, albeit non-dramatic, increase from around 40 percent in 2013. Almost every smartphone owner uses apps, but many have clear preferences. A “staggering 42% of all app time spent on smartphones occurs on the individual’s single most used app,” comScore reports. About 57 percent of the surveyed smartphone owners used apps daily.
“While the meteoric growth of apps transpired quickly, this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise,” comScore said. “After all, apps are the fuel that is driving mobile’s growth and where most of the devices’ utility comes from,” the report adds according to PCmag.
There are 83.8 million Android users in the U.S. and only 67.4 million who use Apple smartphones. As expected, Apple users are wealthier on average than Android users.
Most smartphone users download zero apps probably because they are content with the stock apps. Looking at the most used apps, we can see that smartphone users took their desktop preferences to their mobiles. The mobile Facebook app was used by 115.4 million unique visitors, clearly ahead of the Youtube, accessed by 83.4 million users, followed closely by Google Play, Google Search and Pandora Radio.