Social networking and banking are the two fastest-growing activities on mobile phones in the US, according to the latest report from comScore, based on data from its MobiLens service.

In April 2010, 69.6m mobile users accessed an application on their phone, an increase of 28 per cent over the previous year. Several app categories experienced triple-digit growth, with social networking leading the way, posting a 240 per cent increase to 14.5m users. News apps grew 124 per cent to 9.3m users, while sports information apps experienced a 113 per cent surge to 7.7m users. Bank account apps also more than doubled their audience, growing to nearly 5m users in April.

78 per cent of US smartphone users accessed their browser in April 2010, while 80 per cent of smartphone users accessed applications. In comparison, just 19 per cent of feature phone users accessed their browser, while 17 per cent accessed applications. Although smartphone users are driving growth in browser access (up 111 per cent in the past year) and app access (up 112 per cent), feature phone users still make up nearly half of all users accessing mobile browsers and apps.

“Although growth in application usage on smartphones continues to grab the spotlight in the mobile market, the audience using their mobile browser remains larger and is growing just as quickly,” says Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile. “Brands need to remember to take into consideration the user experience across both channels when building their mobile strategies.”

Almost 73m mobile users accessed their browser in April, an increase of 31 per cent over the previous year. Mirroring app category growth, social networking ranked as the fastest-growing category accessed via browser, up 90 per cent from the previous year to reach almost 30m users, followed by bank accounts (up 69 per cent to 13.2m users). Online retail sites also experienced a significant increase in audience usage via browser, increasing 47 per cent to 7.3m users, as Americans continued to show adoption of the mobile retail channel.

comScore is hosting a complimentary webinar, The State of the Mobile: A Fragmented Reality? on Wednesday, June 9 at 2:00 p.m. EDT. You can get more information and register for the webinar here.