The Internet continues to become increasingly mobile as usage jumps from the desktop to people’s pockets, and social networks like Facebook are likely adding to that agility, according to research recently released by Flurry, the analytics firm.
The use of moble apps continue to rise in popularity, with the average user spending 94 minutes a day on them, an increase of 13 minutes since the firm’s initial report back in June, Flurry stated in a recent blog post.
Web usage, on the other hand, dipped from 74 minutes per day back in June to 72 minutes per day in December of 2011.
And Facebook is likely increasing the difference.
“Our analysis shows that people are now spending less time on the traditional web than they did during the summer 2011,” said Charles Newark-French, Flurry’s senior marketing manager. “This drop appears to be driven largely by a decrease in time spent on Facebook from the traditional web. In June 2011, the average Facebook user spent over 33 minutes on average per day on the website. Now, that number is below 24 minutes. Time spent on the web without Facebook has grown at a modest rate of 2 percent between June 2011 and December 2011.”
Consumers are also using apps more frequently, with users spending more time on apps and the web combined as they become more connected. Growth in the length of time spent in each session is also waning, from 23 percent between December and June of 2010 to 15 percent in December and June of 2011.
“The growth is predominately being driven by an increase in the number of sessions, as opposed to longer session lengths,” Newark-French said. “Consumers are using their apps more frequently.”
How are these mobile app users spending their time? Gaming and socializing, with games taking up 49 percent of mobile app time and social networking apps taking up 30 percent.
These trends will only be heightened by mobile device purchases over the coming year.
“Flurry estimates that the cumulative number of iOS and Android devices activated will surge past 1 billion,” Newark-French said. “According to IDC, over 800 million PCs were sold between 1981 and 2000, making the rate of iOS and Android smart device adoption more than four times faster than that of personal computers.”