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The State of Mobile Apps

June 1, 2010

“There’s an app for that” is Apple’s catch phrase to promote the literally thousands of applications that can be downloaded to an iPhone. Whether you want to check the weather or traffic, bide time playing a game, or study a new language, there is likely a free or paid application that you can access. While Apple may be best known for mobile apps, BlackBerry, Android and other devices also have a huge range of apps available in their stores, as well as in those operated by mobile service providers. With smartphones expected to overtake feature phones in the U.S. by 2011, the popularity of mobile apps will only grow. To get a better sense of what’s popular and what’s not now, Nielsen recently launched its ‘App Playbook,’ surveying more than 4,200 people who had downloaded an application in the past 30 days.

Key Stats

  • 21% of American wireless subscribers have a smartphone at Q4 2009, up from 19% in the previous quarter and significantly higher than the 14% at the end of 2008
  • 14% of mobile subscribers have downloaded an app in the last 30 days
  • Average number of apps: Smartphone: 22, Feature phone: 10
    • BlackBerry: 10
    • iPhone:37
    • Android: 22
    • Palm: 14
    • Windows Mobile: 13

Who is downloading what?

app-playbook

  • Games are the most downloaded – both free and paid
  • Facebook, Google Maps and Weather Channel are the most popular apps across smartphones
    • iPhones: Facebook (58%), iTunes (48%), Google Maps (47%)
    • Android: Google Maps (67%), Facebook (50%), Weather Channel (38%)
    • Blackberry: Facebook (51%), Google Maps(34%), Weather Channel (28%)
  • Social Networking: Facebook clearly favorite app, but MySpace is hugely popular among teens; LinkedIn attracts adults 25-44
  • News/weather: Weather Channel was used by 58%; age distribution across sites was similar, save for Time Mobile and Thomson Reuters
  • Shopping: Amazon and eBay lead (57% and 41%)
  • Search/Map: skew male, particularly Instamapper (80/20)
  • Video/Movie: skewed towards males; Imeem and Moviefone show a higher proportion of young users
  • Music: iTunes, Pandora, Sirius XM appeal more to males, while Yahoo Music almost evenly split (51/49)

top-smartphone-apps

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  • http://www.littlespringsdesign.com Barbara Ballard

    So Blackberry users download the same number of apps as the average feature phone user? That seems highly improbable. What distinguishes smart phone and feature phone in this survey? Also, what category does a browser fall into?

  • Mobile_user

    Curious that the incidence of apps on features phones is so high. Do all feature phones support apps? or only certain platforms?

  • Tim T

    As there does not appear to be an industry standard definition for what a "smartphone" actually is, can you please define it in the context of this article?

  • Anonylous

    What do you call a smartphone and what do you call a feature phone? where do you draw the line? I thought smartphone was a buzz word to sell expensive phones, but you managed to make statistics with that.

  • Lucas P

    There is no standard industry definition of a smartphone. AdMob's definition is based on Wikipedia: "A smartphone is a phone that runs complete operating system software providing a standardized interface and platform for application developers" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone).

    AdMob classifies a phone as a smartphone when it has an identifiable operating system. Despite running the iPhone OS, the iPod touch is not a phone, and thus not considered a smartphone based on this definition.

  • GuestComment

    @Mobile-user: Yes, feature phones do run apps… many of them being Java-based. They are downloaded in much the same way as smartphone apps are – from the carrier/providers catalog of available apps. The key distinction is it is very rare to find FREE apps for featured phones offered by carriers, but there are some "shareware" type apps available online. Companies like Gameloft have been building incredibly sophisticated apps for feature phones for years.

  • GuestComment

    It may help to think of a smartphone as a device that gives you capabilities beyond just voice and limited data service. A smartphone allows users to interact with their device in a manner almost indistinguishable from a regular desktop/laptop or tablet computer. In most cases, they can modify/enhance/personalize both the look, feel and functionality of the operating system as well as core phone voice and data services fairly easily and painlessly. Further, their apps fully integrate with the phone's core voice and data functionality to allow for more versatile apps.To the best of my knowledge, the iPhone is the only smart phone with limited multitasking capabilities – one of the other core differentiators between smartphones and feature phones.

  • Matt L

    Strange audience qualification – people who downloaded an app in the last 30 days? How does that relate to total smartphone audience that used an app? I haven't downloaded an app in the last 30 days, but there are some that I have been using every day for months.

  • Sujoy

    For the Smart Vs Feature Phone, today's generic definition seems to be (barring the pricetag, that which is not a "Smartphone" is a Feature Phone! Wow, that's a first for circular logic)!

    Anyways, here's what I found:

    Any mobile phone that is not a smartphone or PDA phone. Feature phones have proprietary operating system (OS) firmware. If they support third-party software, it is only via a limited interface such as Java or BREW. Compared to software for smartphones, Java or BREW software for feature phones is often less powerful, less integrated with other features of the phone, and less integrated into the main user interface of the phone. (Source: http://www.phonescoop.com/glossary/term.php?gid=3... this helps……..

  • mobdev

    As a simple definition a feature phone is a phone that is not a BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, Palm or Windows Mobile. Generally running brew, j2me or a proprietary environment. The definition isn't completely clear, but I am a mobile developer and that is how we use the term.

  • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/darkgod Ashutosh

    facebook is leading on the mobile phones for all the different OS… only exception is Android

  • Marco

    n=62 for Android phones… How could we consider this result as being statisticaly representative ?

  • http://www.facebook.com/bassmadrigal Jeremy Brent Hansen

    My guess on the reason why facebook doesn't lead on Android, is because the Facebook for Android app sucks. It is so limited. I use Bloo for all my facebook stuff except for notifying me of pokes, messages and friend requests (it doesn't even do standard notifications). Those are the only things that the "Facebook for Android" app are good for. I have a feeling that a lot of people would rather just go to the mobile website than use that app (I would if I wasn't using Bloo).

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