A recent study from Arbitron found that when it came to mobile commerce, the top web domains tended to have higher reach than the top applications, but that users tended to spend far more time with the apps. New data from Nielsen [download page] supports that latter finding on a broader level, revealing that in March 2013 both smartphone and tablet (limited to iPad) owners spent far more time with apps than on the mobile web. Overall, smartphone users spent just 13% of their time using the mobile web, and iPad users a relatively larger – but still minor – 24%.
On the smartphone side of the equation (iOS and Android) there were few differences in consumption habits between men and women:
- Men spent an average of 25 hours and 53 minutes using apps, versus 4 hours and 1 minute on the mobile web; and
- Women spent 28 hours and 7 minutes using apps, and 4 hours and 23 minutes using the mobile web.
Clearly women spent more time on their smartphones, though not by a huge margin (8.7%).
The gap was larger when it came to iPad use:
- Women spent 15 hours and 5 minutes using mobile apps, versus 12 hours and 24 minutes for men; and
- Women spent 5 hours and 5 minutes using the mobile web, compared to 3 hours and 23 minutes for men.
That equates to women spending 27.8% more time overall on their iPads than men.
When looking at app-only consumption on smartphones versus iPads, the study shows that streaming video consumption was higher on iPads than smartphones (1:48 vs. 1:15), while the opposite was true for sports (1:11 on smartphones; 0:50 on iPads) and social networking (9:06 vs. 3:41).
About the Data: Smartphone: Smartphone data are sourced from over 5000 panelists (March 2013) across iOS and Android. Data is weighted and projected to the following benchmarks from Nielsen’s NPM panel: Age, Gender, Income, Race, and Ethnicity.
Tablet: Tablet data are sourced from over 1300 iPad 3G and 3G+WiFi panelists (March 2013). Data is unweighted.
Monthly time spent per person totals are based on a rollup of select apps within each
of the categories listed. In order to be selected the primary function of the app must fall within the category selected. Apps that have multiple uses (Ex. Weather apps that include some video, News apps that have a sports section) were excluded as not all time spent can be attributed to the category. Apps must be running in the foreground of the phone/tablet to be measured.
