Flurry currently tracks over 2.1 billion smart devices worldwide on a monthly basis. While the growth rate has declined (58% in 2015 compared to 76% in 2014 and 103% in 2013), it remains significant, and a growing proportion of that growth rate comes from existing users. In 2015, Flurry estimates that 40% of the 58% total growth in sessions came from existing users, compared to 20% in 2014 and 10% in 2013. This jives well with the report released last summer (Editor's note: roughly Q315), showing a fast increase in mobile addicts.
From a category perspective, four categories grew faster than the average:
Personalisation apps saw their sessions balloon more than 332% in 2015. These apps range from Android lock-screens to emoji keyboards. When we looked deeper into the category, we noticed that the majority of the growth is coming from emoji apps (mainly keyboards) giving consumers the ability to share customised correspondence in their messaging apps, such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Line and Snapchat.
News and magazine apps grew a 135% in 2015. This growth validates the trend in media consumption reported last summer, signalling a shift in media consumption from television and PCs to smartphones in general, and phablets in particular.
Productivity apps continued the trend that started in 2014, with 125% session growth in 2015. In fact, more and more consumers, especially teens and college students are using their smartphones, phablets and tablets as their primary computing device and their sole device to access email and other productivity apps, like Google Docs, Quip, Slack and the Microsoft productivity suite.
Lastly, lifestyle and shopping apps grew 81% in 2015, following 174% growth in 2014. This growth rate validates reports in early 2015 that mobile commerce is “growing like a weed” and already accounts for 40% of online commerce on a worldwide basis.
While the overall growth rate of 58% paints an interesting picture, Flurry's analysis dug a bit deeper by looking into growth rates cut by categories and form factors, especially phablets. The growth rates of the news & magazine, sports, and music, media, & etertainment categories are over-indexed on phablets compared to the growth rates on all devices combined.
Personalisation apps saw their sessions balloon more than 332% in 2015. These apps range from Android lock-screens to emoji keyboards. When we looked deeper into the category, we noticed that the majority of the growth is coming from emoji apps (mainly keyboards) giving consumers the ability to share customised correspondence in their messaging apps, such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Line and Snapchat.
News and magazine apps grew a 135% in 2015. This growth validates the trend in media consumption reported last summer, signalling a shift in media consumption from television and PCs to smartphones in general, and phablets in particular.
Productivity apps continued the trend that started in 2014, with 125% session growth in 2015. In fact, more and more consumers, especially teens and college students are using their smartphones, phablets and tablets as their primary computing device and their sole device to access email and other productivity apps, like Google Docs, Quip, Slack and the Microsoft productivity suite.
Lastly, lifestyle and shopping apps grew 81% in 2015, following 174% growth in 2014. This growth rate validates reports in early 2015 that mobile commerce is “growing like a weed” and already accounts for 40% of online commerce on a worldwide basis.
While the overall growth rate of 58% paints an interesting picture, Flurry's analysis dug a bit deeper by looking into growth rates cut by categories and form factors, especially phablets. The growth rates of the news & magazine, sports, and music, media, & etertainment categories are over-indexed on phablets compared to the growth rates on all devices combined.
Growth in news & magazines apps on phablets was 4.8x that of all devices, meaning phablet users are engaging in these apps at a much higher rate than the average smart device user. A similar pattern emerged for sports and music, and for media & entertainment apps, at 4.6x and 4x respectively. It appears that the extra inch of real estate has made the phablet the ultimate media consumption device.
The picture is clearer when we looked at year-over-year growth in time spent and cut that by form factor. Time spent on phablets grew 334% year-over-year (2.9 times more than the average), compared to 117% for all form factors. With time spent on mobile surpassing that on television, and phablets posting significant growth in media consumption, it appears that the cable industry will find in the phablet and its apps its digital nemesis.
Once labelled a fad (even by Flurry itself), phablets have become the unstoppable media consumption device. 27% of all new devices activated for Christmas in 2015 were phablets while 50% of all Android devices activated in the same timeframe were phablets.
If the current trends hold, the phablet will become the dominant form factor by October of 2016. It is clear consumers want their content, and they want it on a bigger screen.
Interested?
Read more about Flurry’s State of Mobile report
*Flurry defines app usage as a user opening an app and recording a “session”.
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