Nielsen: App use among Android users twice that of mobile web

Android users spend an hour each day using the mobile web and apps on their smartphones, according to the latest Nielsen Smartphone Analytics, but mostly apps.

by Helen Leggatt

The average Android user in the US spends 56 minutes per day "actively interacting with" the mobile Internet and apps they have on their smartphone.

Of the two activities mobile apps take up the majority of the time spent using smartphones - 67% vs. 33% of the time spent on the mobile Internet.

Yet, found Nielsen, of the quarter of a million or so apps available on Android Market only a small proportion account for the majority of time spent with apps.

According to Nielsen, "the top 10 Android apps account for 43% of all the time spent by Android consumers on mobile apps. The top 50 apps account for 61% of all time spent. With 250,000+ Android apps available at the time of this writing, that means the remaining 249,950+ apps have to compete for the remaining 39% of the pie."

The top 10 (free) Android apps at the time of writing are Google Maps, YouTube, Facebook Mobile, Angry Birds, Skype, Tiny Flashlight, Vodafone MyAccount, Angry Birds Rio, Viber and Drag Racing.

Nielsen has scheduled a webinar for September 15, 2011, to discuss more of its findings on Android devices.

Tags: Android, consumer insight, mobile apps, mobile Internet, mobile operating system, smartphone use