Flurry Analytics has revealed that overall app usage grew by 11 percent in 2016, as compared to the previous year. This was announced in its annual global mobile and application usage study, which followed trends on over 2.1 billion smart devices and 3.2 trillion sessions. Flurry Analytics is a part of the Yahoo Mobile Developer Suite.
The report also revealed that users spent most of their time using social media and messaging apps, which grew by 394 percent over the last year. Further, business and finance went up by 43 percent, while sports went up by 25 percent. However, the time users spent gaming declined by 4 percent year-on-year.
Simon Khalaf, SVP, Yahoo stated, “Compared to the year prior, overall app usage grew by 11% and time-spent in apps grew by 69%. In previous years, we saw all app categories growing in tandem; however, this year the story is different. After shifting the web and television to the rearview mirror, mobile apps started eating their own, with session and time-spent growth in some app categories occurring at the expense of others. While Messaging and Social applications drove year-over-year session growth at 44%, the Personalization category gave up a staggering 46% in session usage. This steep decline in usage can be attributed to diminishing value for users of these products.”
Furry’s report also notes that phablets have become the dominant form factor in the world with a market share of 41 percent. Further, it predicts that the phablet share will continue to increase and eventually eliminate small phones completely.