Report: Time Spent on Mobile Apps Increased Only 6 Percent in 2017

A little more than a month ago, App Annie had projected that mobile users across the globe will be spending about $110 billion making purchases from app stores this year. This suggested that the next few months will pretty much see a significant growth in the volume of mobile apps bought. A new report from Flurry is suggesting that while 2018 will have more people spending on apps, the growth in time spent engaged in apps may have slowed down in 2017.

In its State of Mobile 2017 report, Flurry indicated that general app session activity only increased 6 percent from 2016 to 2017. Sure, that is still growth, but considering that time spent on mobile apps grew 11 percent from 2015 to 2016, that 6 percent increase is somewhat tame in comparison. 

In the previous year’s report, the 11 percent growth that was reported by Flurry equated to around 5 hours each day spent engaged in mobile apps among American consumers. For the year 2017, mobile app usage appears to steadying instead of rapidly rising. Flurry’s data shows that mobile users may be shifting activity to newer apps from older apps. There is also some indication that people are spending their usage time across a broader range of apps.

As expected, e-commerce apps continue to be popular. Flurry’s information shows a 54 percent improvement in shopping app usage from 2016 to 2017. This could be taken as evidence that more and more consumers buying stuff online through their smartphones and tablet devices. The increasing prominence of mobile payment systems such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay might have also helped in driving growth in shopping app usage.

According to Flurry’s report, the Media, Music and Entertainment category also registered a 43 percent increase year over year in terms of mobile app usage. This is hardly a surprise, considering the general observation made by industry watchers that people nowadays are simply devouring more media than ever on their mobile devices. In July of last year for instance, Sensor Tower had reported that the Netflix app has managed to outgross every other app out there. Intriguingly, Flurry’s information is showing that Lifestyle apps are having the biggest decline in growth, posting a decrease of 40 percent compared to the previous year’s. 

For the latest annual State of Mobile report, Flurry had monitored over a million mobile apps being used across 2.6 billion handsets around the world. Just to be clear, the firm defines app usage activity as any instant wherein a mobile user launches an app and records a session.