Today, the average US smartphone owner spends over 2 hours per day using apps and websites on their device — more time than they spend watching TV. Despite this, most of the time that consumers spend using these mobile devices is to communicate with others. Downloaded social networking and communication apps — messaging, email, and digital video/voice – come in a variety of forms; some facilitate intimate conversation, while others blast a network (or even the public) with a one-way status update. As a whole, these apps achieve some of the highest app reach and engagement rates for both US and UK consumers.

My recent report, The Uptake And Engagement Of Social Mobile Apps In The US And The UK, compares the reach of social mobile apps as well as the average number of days per month and sessions per day that smartphone owners (18+) use these apps. Using Forrester's Mobile Audience Data (passively tracked smartphone data), we found that:

  • Facebook is still the most popular app used by both US and UK smartphone owners today.
  • Messaging apps like Snapchat, WhatsApp, and Kik keep users coming back frequently throughout the day.
  • Smartphone owners access email apps frequently throughout the course of a month.
  • The Instagram app reaches more users and has them coming back more frequently than the Twitter app in the US.

Nicole Dvorak is a data scientist serving all roles. Follow her on Twitter at @NicoleLDvorak.

__________________________

About Forrester's mobile audience data: Forrester's mobile audience data helps you understand how your customers behave in their mobile moments — and if you play any role at all. It will give you a better understanding of your target consumers and how they use their mobiles and tablets, from the amount of time they spend on different social media outlets to their most popular time of day to visit shopping websites. We track behavior using a passive application on consumers' smartphones and tablets that allows us to subtly collect data without disrupting normal behavior. Compared with other data sources, it allows us to capture actions at a very detailed level with precision, eliminating measurement errors by analyzing usage of what consumers do, not what they say they do. Please contact data@forrester.com when you would love to learn more.