Apps continue to displace browser on mobile devices

Earlier this month Flurry released statistics on U.S. consumer mobile device usage, showing a relative decline in usage of mobile web compared to mobile apps. The ratio is now 6 to 1 in favour of mobile apps.

Major social media platforms and gaming take up large amounts of user time spent on mobile devices.

The survey is looking at apps vs browser, whether those apps are native apps or hybrid apps. I’m sure many of these apps are hybrid apps built using web technologies to some degree.

I think the survey is yet another blow to the idea that now or in the near future the mobile browser would quickly displace apps in a similar manner to how desktop apps were displaced by the browser. That may happen one day, but I’d seriously caution against counting on this to happen in the near to medium term. The more likely scenario in the near to medium term is that hybrid apps continue to displace both purely native apps and the browser.