Flurry: App Usage Up 77 Per Cent Year-on-year in Asia

Asian woman using smartphone on sofa living roomThe number of mobile app sessions in Asia grew by 77 per cent in the year to April 2015, compared to the previous 12 months, according to new figures from Flurry. The growth was primarily driven by three categories of apps: Games; Shopping & Lifestyle; and Utilities & Productivity.

One quarter of the mobile app time spent by users in Asia is in games. The next largest category is Lifestyle and Shopping, with 19 per cent of total time, with Utilities & Productivity third, accounting got 17 per cent of users’ in-app time.

Messaging apps continue to show growth, but at a decelerated, reflective of the maturation and lifecycle of the category. Messaging app sessions grew just 20 per cent year-on-year and only 13 per cent of users’ time in Asia is spent in Messaging apps.

Looking at Mobile Shopping, Flurry said it’s important to recognize that the region is very large and diverse, and shopping trends differ by country. For example, shoppers in Singapore prefer traditional eCommerce and bricks and mortar locations, whereas in India, online shopping destinations, such as Myntra, are shutting down their websites in favour of an app-only strategy.

Although the shift from eCommerce to mCommerce has not occurred everywhere in Asia, Flurry said it is still seeing staggering growth across the region in terms of engagement. Mobile shopping in Asia peaks first during the lunch hour, between 12 noon and 1pm, and then again during dinner time between 6pm and 8pm.

Flurry has previously recognized the phablet as the fastest growing device type to date global, with 148 per cent year over year growth worldwide. Looking at session percentage by form factor in Asia, it said it’s clear that Asia is a large contributor to the growth of the phablet device. Globally, session distribution between regular smartphones and phablets is 60 per cent and 31 per cent, respectively. In Asia, the sessions are split more evenly between the devices, 45 per cent on regular smartphones, 42 per cent on phablets. Phablet users in Asia also conduct 78 per cent more sessions than the average smartphone user.

Flurry currently tracks 610m monthly active devices in Asia, representing just over a third of the 1.8bn devices it sees monthly in total.