According to the Nielsen’s Cross-Platform Report for 2014, apps are always miles ahead, when it reported that 89% of time spent on a smartphone is spent on apps, while only 11% is spent on the mobile web.
Who’s driving these trends? Is it the young audience?
The mobile trend overall is, as expected, most noticeable among young adults. The audience base covering the age group of 18-24 is huge, coming behind only TV and AM/FM radio in terms of multimedia device usage. Internet browsing on the computer accounts for almost 4 hours. For people belonging to this age group, mobile apps and mobile web are ahead of the desktop/laptop, when it comes to media. For businesses connecting with the younger segment of your audience is the key target market. Focus today is on mobiles and only mobiles.
Why are apps so far ahead?
According to the data, while a user can easily spend hour after hour into Candy Crush, or Facebook, it’s harder for a person to browse the Internet for comparable lengths of time on a mobile device (a workplace computer, of course, is rumored to be notoriously well-suited to this purpose). This isn’t to say, however, that mobile websites should be treated as an afterthought. On the contrary, Mobile websites are a necessity for any small business. And while they are used for far less time than apps, don’t be fooled by the comparison. Essentially, a mobile website is a key new channel for connecting with customers, and avoiding creating one is both short-sighted and destructive to revenue growth potential. Customers only browse on mobile websites for a few seconds, but those seconds can create a difference between making a sale and being invisible.
So what’s the benefit?
The benefit for small businesses is, that users have become very comfortable using apps. Obviously, a user won’t tend to spend the same amount of time using the app of their local pizza shop as they will the leading social apps or games, but the carryover effect should still be there. Create your own app, while making the most of a technology that has become a popular powerhouse with a huge amount of people. You need to go where your audience is, and as the data show, your audience is probably in an app right now. So focus on T…Apping them!