US mobile app time up 69%

According to Flurry’s 2016: The Year Social Ate Media and Telcos report, the huge growth in messaging and social apps is a result of consumers using their social and messaging apps for voice and video calling. 

Time spent using business and finance apps grew by 43% and sports by 25%. According to the report, these categories are ‘immune to growth decay’ as a result of being ‘intrinsically centred around mobile activities and rely on real time data'. Time spent in shopping apps also grew, by 31%. 

Looking at overall app usage, rather than time spent, total app usage grew by 11% year-on-year, driven primarily by messaging and social ( 44% growth), sports ( 43% growth), business and finance ( 30%) and shopping ( 25%).