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Wed, 06/27/2012 - 17:01 — Bull City Mobile

* Source: Wall Street Journal*

A new study breaks down app usage and how people are interacting with their tablets, iPhones and Android phones. The study done by Localytics (try to say that three times fast) looked at the behavior of consumers on 60 million mobile devices and also analyzed users who downloaded an app from July 2011 counting how many times they then used that up over a period of nine months. While the study didn't differentiate between free and paid apps, the mobile analytics firm created a measure of opening an app 11 times or more because that is allegedly the rate at which app publishers consider a user to be loyal or retained.

    Here's what the study revealed:

  • As of June, consumers had downloaded 30 billion apps from the Apple App Store where more than 650,000 apps are available. Google Play, which sells Android apps, is reported to have had 15 billion downloads from its selection of 500,000 apps.
  • Users of the iPhone and iPad are about twice as loyal to their apps than Android users.
  • About 35% of Apple device users opened their apps 11 times or more, compared to just 23% of Android users.

    The disparity may be linked to the fact that many developers create apps for the iOS platform first, and then move on to Android, making the iOS apps a “bit more mature and polished and refined.” Given the current popularity of droid phones over iPhones though that trend has started to shift some.

    Bottom Line
    What's the takeaway for developers here? Two things.
    1. Getting your app downloaded is only the beginning. How do you monetize the app
    2. The more people use your app, the better chance you have at in app advertising.

    Given the numbers of apps currently flooding the market, this in and of itself is quite a challenge but it is a market that continues to grow and has far from reached it's tipping point.