App Trends Analyzed By Neilson

Messapps
App Trends

Neilson is a global information measurement company that analyzes the markets for television, media, online intelligence and mobile media. They have a presence in one hundred countries with headquarters in New York. Neilson themselves have released an app approximately in the last year which lists the top ten products or services in particular categories.

Through the Neilson study, we find that older users (approx 25-44) use the most variety of mobile applications. On average this agree group will use 29 apps from any of the categories. However, the age group who spends the most time on apps are the 18 to 24 year olds. On average this age group spends approximately 37 hours on mobile applications. During which time they tend to spend their time on entertainment or social apps.

Neilson claims that when comparing data from 2012 to 2013, they saw a 31% increase in the amount of time users were spending on mobile applications. It is interesting to analyze their statistics that illustrate which categories are most popular in regard to time spend on them and their experienced growth between 2012 and 2013. At the top of this list, is ‘Search, portals and social’. Younger generations who spend more time on apps typically spend it on social apps. Moreover, social apps are designed to be used several times a day for undetermined periods of time. To help increase the amount of time spent on your mobile application it may be helpful to design the user experience to recreate (to any degree) a social experience. An strong second runner up is entertainment. The entertainment category experienced at 71% growth statistic to reflect the increased amount of time users are spending on these apps. More and more users in all age groups are seeking on-the-go entertainment.

Finally, a niche category that has seen a large increase in time spent on it are Photography apps. Many social platforms provide the option of posting a photograph which has lead to an increase in photo editing app downloads. When considering app ideas it may be worth your time to think of apps in categories such as these. Apps that help or provide supporting serves for popular apps can have piggyback popularity.