Bye-Bye PC: Mobile App Usage Is At An All Time High

According to the latest report from ComScore, the time spent on mobile apps is at an all-time high in the US, and there’s no sign of it slowing down anytime soon. I know, this may not be earth-shattering news to you, but they also claim that at 51%, the time spent on mobile apps is higher than any other digital medium.

ComScore 1

Can you guess which app category people spent the most time on? No, not social networks. Digital radio! Pandora dominated that category, followed by photo apps such as Instagram and Flickr. Also popular on smartphones and tablets were maps and instant messaging. By now you must be wondering, “What about social networks?” They’re actually not at the top of the list at all! But they’re still important for their rate of growth. Social networks have accounted for 31% of all Internet growth since 2013.

ComScore 2

As a result of increased usage of mobile devices, desktop PC usage is on the decline. It may be a sad thought for a second, but if you think about it – mobile devices are usually capable of handling more complex tasks compared to desktop PCs. Don’t worry – hope is not lost for PCs! ComScore noted that 73% of downloads take place on mobile devices. Limited bandwidth through network connections pushes consumers to use PCs for heavier purposes. Even so, mobile devices still rank higher with 65% usage time for directories and access to resources.

Now let’s think about the battle of mobile devices versus desktop PCs. I remember the days when it was more so a luxury to use mobile devices to do anything and everything that required data. Then the mobile platform shift kicked in with full force and took over. Numerous aspects of our lives started to become dependent on mobile devices and apps. What was once a luxury quickly became the default. In its own way, the usage of desktop PCs with real keyboards might actually become the new luxury.

Old PC and iPad

ComScore’s report on the rise of mobile/mobile app usage isn’t all that shocking. Do you know what is? The fact that we still have to deal with messages such as “The content owner has not made this video available on mobile.” Really? That needs to go.

Disclosure: Offer Yehudai is the President and Co-Founder of Inneractive, a company which specializes in selling the services described in this post. Please share your thoughts in the comments or on ...

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