App usage dominates the use of the web on U.S. consumers' mobile devices

Do you consider yourself to be an average U.S. consumer? If so, according to analytics firm Flurry, you spend 2 hours and 42 minutes a day using a mobile device. That is an increase of 4 minutes a day from last year's figure. Of that time spent on a mobile device, the average U.S. consumer is playing around with the apps on his device for 2 hours and 19 minutes, compared to just 22 minutes spent on the mobile web.

Looking at the same stats, 86% of the time that the average American citizen is using his mobile device, it is to use apps. Browsing the web takes up just 14% of the time spent on a mobile device by the average guy in the U.S. Last year, the average mobile device was used for browsing 20% of the time with app use making up the remaining 80%.

What apps are American consumers spending time using the most? According to Flurry, 32% of the time is spent playing mobile video games, while Facebook accounts for 17%. 4% of the time is used watching YouTube videos, while just 3% is budgeted to catch up on the news. This indicates that by a thin margin, Americans would rather watch video of a pug barking out "I love you" instead of learning what is going on in the world around them.

Speaking of Facebook, as we noted, the average person in the U.S spends 17% of the time on his mobile phone or tablet, checking out the social networking site. And thus, it should be no surprise that 18% of mobile ad dollars are collected by Facebook. But Google on the other hand, has something very powerful going on with advertisers. Google-owned apps (like YouTube) account for 18% of the time the average U.S. consumer spends on a mobile device. Yet, advertisers are throwing 49% of the money spent on mobile advertising, at Google apps.

Some experts are predicting a whopping 75% gain in mobile ads this year. These same experts predict that in-app ad revenue will surpass revenue from web display ads by 2017. But the growth in mobile app usage is actually slowing down. This year, the gain is 12 minutes a day, or 9.5%, which is lower than the increase seen in recent years. Are we close to a peak in mobile app use? Can the mobile browser make a comeback? Stay tuned.


source: Flurry via Textually.org