Among tablet and smartphone users who downloaded only free apps in the past month, 33 percent chose games, 20 percent chose social networking and 18 percent chose music. However, app downloaders are willing to shell out money. Consumers who downloaded just paid apps or a combination of free and paid apps invested the most in games (35%), maps/navigation (29%) and music (27%).

For additional insights on consumer electronics and media usage, download Nielsen’s State of the Media: Consumer Usage Report.

For more insights on usage and trends across TV, mobile, online, and social media download Nielsen’s State of the Media: Consumer Usage Report.

Key findings:

• The majority of 25-34 and 18-24 year olds now own smartphones (64% and 53% respectively);
• The majority of smartphone owners (62%) have downloaded apps on their devices and games are the top application category used in the past 30 days;
• The number of smartphone subscribers using the mobile Internet has grown 45 percent since 2010;
• 87 percent of app downloaders (those who have downloaded an app in the past 30 days) have used deal-of-the-day websites like Groupon or Living Social;
• Younger groups text the most. In Q3, teens 13-17 sent and received the most text messages (an average of 3,417 each month).

This report draws from a broad range of Nielsen data sources, including: Nielsen’s in-depth monthly surveys of mobile consumers (more than 300,000 consumers surveyed each year); Device metering data from the iOS and Android smartphones of thousands of consumers who have volunteered to be a part of our research panel; detailed, monthly analysis of the cellphone bills for 65,000 lines in the U.S., again, thanks to volunteer panelists.

For more, download State of the Media: The Mobile Media Report Q3 2011.

Messaging remains the centerpiece of mobile teen behavior.  The number of messages exchanged monthly (SMS and MMS) hit 3,417 per teen in Q3 2011, averaging seven messages per waking hour.  Teen females are holding the messaging front, sending and receiving 3,952 messages per month versus 2,815 from males.  Aside from messaging, data heavy activities such as mobile internet, social networking, email, app downloads, and app usage are the most popular mobile activities.

Teens are not focused on making calls via their mobile phones. Voice usage has declined the most among this group, from an average of 685 minutes to 572 minutes. When surveyed, the top three reasons teens said that they prefer messaging to calling was because it is faster (22 percent), easier (21 percent), and more fun (18 percent).

For more mobile insights, download State of the Media: The Mobile Media Report Q3 2011.

Combined with Apple’s other best-selling handsets, the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS, Apple phones accounted for nearly two-thirds of all mentions about smartphones between July through December 2011. A handful of Android phones such as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Droid Bionic, and HTC Evo series phones attracted substantial buzz leading up to the holiday shopping season, accounting for nearly a quarter of buzz.

BlackBerry models took in 10 percent of the buzz, led by the BlackBerry Bold series which was the third-most mentioned handset with over 6 percent of online buzz about these top smartphones.

Methodology: Using a list of the top 20 recently acquired smartphone handsets during the 3rd quarter, as well as a handful of recently released handsets such the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Apple’s iPhone 4S, Nielsen looked at online buzz mentioning these smartphones from July – December 2011 posted in blogs, message boards/groups, public posts on Twitter and Facebook, and online news sites.

According to Nielsen’s latest data, 44 percent of all U.S. mobile subscribers now have smartphones. Among those who purchased a new mobile phone in the last three months, 56 percent chose smartphones. Android remains the leading smartphone operating system while Apple is the leading smartphone manufacturer.

View full graphic with footnotes.

Roughly 40 percent of tablet and smartphone owners in the U.S. used their devices daily while watching TV, while only 14 percent of eReader owners said they watched TV while using their device every day.

And what are smartphone and tablet owners doing while watching TV? Checking email. Email was the top activity for both men and women during television programming and commercial breaks. In addition, women reported engaging in social networking more than men, while men checked sports scores more often.

Advertisers should take note that while viewers may be splitting attention between two (or three!) screens, 19 percent of smartphone and tablet owners searched for product information and 13 percent searched for coupons or deals while the television was on.

While many of the top 20 apps, including the streaming music service Pandora and two versions of the popular game Angry Birds, showed similar usage by both men and women, there were notable differences in active reach for social apps. Facebook’s mobile app saw an active reach of 81 percent for women compared to 69 percent for male Android users. Twitter also had slightly higher active reach among women (16.5%) than men (13.4%). However, Google+, Google’s new social network, had more than twice the active reach among men (15.8%) than women (7.2%).

Outside of social media, apps like Amazon’s Kindle and Words With Friends showed higher active reach among women, while apps like Quickoffice Pro and the Amazon Appstore had higher active reach among male Android smartphone owners. And despite the stereotype that men don’t like asking for directions, they seemed pretty comfortable using Google Maps, which has 77 percent active reach among men compared to 71.8 percent among women.

For more Android user trends and insights, sign up for Nielsen’s September 15 webinar, All About Android.

Consider these stats:

• There are 5.2 billion mobile subscribers globally (77% of the world’s population).
• In 2012, smartphone sales will overtake computers.
• By 2013, more people will access the Internet through their mobile than through a PC.
• By 2015, mobile broadband could be 3-4 times faster than fixed line broadband in many countries.
• 79 percent of U.S. consumers use a smartphone to help with their shopping.
• On average, people look at their phones 150 times per day.

With smartphones rapidly reaching critical mass in some markets, mobile is evolving from a “discovery” to a purchase tool for consumers. At the Nielsen Consumer 360 conference in Frankfurt, Germany, strategies for driving an integrated mobile strategy were revealed.

Growth Potential in Germany is Big

With more than one mobile phone per person in Germany, it is a strong mobile market, but the potential for growth exists. German mobile consumers are connected and getting smarter. Nearly two out of every three (63%) mobile purchases in Germany are smartphones. Today, 30 percent of Germans own a smartphone, compared with 45 percent in the U.K., 40 percent in the U.S., and 36 percent in Russia.

And with 83 percent of German smartphone users contract-billed by a carrier, higher monthly spending patterns follow: users spend an average of 1.5 more than feature phone users on their bills. The advanced user interface is also prompting more sophisticated communication. Over 65 percent of smartphone owners use email and half are active social network users.

Perhaps most compelling is the fact that more than half (58%) of mobile Internet usage occurs in the home, virtually changing the way people shop and opening up new opportunities for advertisers. Fifty-six percent of Germans react when receiving mobile advertising on their phone and more than one in five purchased the item advertised. “Mobile truly serves as the bridge between the online and the offline world,” explains David Gosen from Nielsen. “Mobile is empowering consumers to interact with stores, brands, friends and family in a way they never have done so before.”

Go Mo-So-Lo (Go Mobile, Go Social, Go Local)
More than 250 million active users currently access Facebook through their mobile devices and they are twice as active as non-mobile users. In Germany, nearly 50 percent of all smartphone users have used a social networking app in the last 30 days.

A mobile and social media strategy must go hand-in-hand (having a Facebook page is not enough). And proximity is influence. Location-based mobile alerts are impacting decisions to buy in a particular store. Creating a successful mobile strategy requires 4Cs:

• Content – be engaging.
• Conversation – create two-way dialogue
• Community – connect through advocacy programs
• Continuity – think long-term and on-going

Mobile is a big part of your customers lives – be a part of it. Build deep and more engaging personal dialogs – be where they are. Creativity and innovation differentiates your brand at every stage of their journey. Understand the real insight and behaviors of your mobile consumers to drive success.