Key Mobile Market Trends II: Mobile Apps vs. Mobile Browsing

We have started this series of postings where we touch the key developments in the mobile market in no particular order and while doing so we provide some hints, stats and recommendations. We started from the fundamental shift that changed the rules of the game, now we present Key Mobile Market Trends II.

Mobile Apps vs. Mobile Browsing

Which is better — should you develop platform-specific mobile applications or mobile optimized browsing sites? Should content publishers and distributors concentrate on mobile apps, mobile browsing or both when developing their services?

Mobile applications are nothing new. Hundreds of thousands of productivity, gaming, utility and entertainment apps have been around in mobile space for the last decade. So, what changed in the mobile market causing everyone to suddenly start talking about applications, app stores, mobile platforms and ecosystems; when the use of all types of mobile services from wireless devices are rocketing?

The research was carried out in August by using a sample of over 56 million mobile impressions from Nordic mobile services where both applications and browsing based access were supported. The research analysed actual mobile traffic collected by CEM4Mobile Analytics between week 26 and week 30 of 2011. The results were as follows:

Browser vs. App Usages:

Source: CEM4Mobile Solutions Ltd

The numbers reveal that in average application users count only 9,85% of the unique users and they consume 34,61% of the impressions in a mobile service. So, why the hype?
Simply because:

1. Once within a mobile service, the application users consume 2.4 times more impressions compared to mobile browsing users.

2. Browsing users return to mobile service on average five times in a month, whereas application users return more than eleven times.

3. Furthermore, average time spent in a service differs greatly between browsing and applications as well as between the different application platforms:

Minutes in mobile service:

Source: CEM4Mobile Solutions Ltd

Native applications are being used for an instant increase in end-user activity and loyalty but as a downside means that organizations need to create customized versions of each app for number of mobile platforms. All this is very expensive and cumbersome to the content publishers and distributors to invest and maintain. However, it is currently tolerated due to the increased loyalty and experience. It remains to be seen will the widely supported HTML5 change the game already in 2012 and no doubt we will be coming back on this.

If we look the distribution of the usage based on different platforms we can find the following variation:

Distribution of Impressions:

Source: CEM4Mobile Solutions Ltd

The figures in application space are obviously greatly impacted by the availability of customized app versions on different platforms and thus content publishers’ and distributors’ investment decisions. Interestingly enough these decisions don’t seem to follow the current market shares but the projected gained impact on experience, interactions and engagement.

In conclusion, do not miss the fact that most of the wireless device users are still using their mobile browser to access the mobile Internet. Native applications and app stores provide great platforms for niche players but when you want to attract the diverse mobile market and all your potential users you need to support both. First, by providing a browsing service for all users; then, turning your casual customers into active, loyal and advocate customer segments with applications and by other best practises.

Competition of desktop space and users’ time on wireless devices is already fierce and thus just steadily publishing new applications is going to be a temporary source of loyalty for content publishers and distributors.

Figure 1:  Average Distribution of Impressions on Mobile Optimized Browsing Sites

Figure 2:  Average Distribution of Impressions from Mobile Applications