During November, app analytics platform Flurry measured over a trillion app events – individual actions within apps such as making a reservation, completing a level in a game, or tagging a song.

These activities came from over 250,000 apps, created by more than 85,000 developers, and Flurry also measured over 60bn app sessions in total.

The 80/20 Rule

According to Flurry, gaming dominated app usage using apps in November, making up 43 per cent of time spent in apps – thats 55 minutes a day for the average US consumer. Comparing with data from a US Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, that means that mobile gaming makes up 76 per cent of the time consumers spend gaming.

The three next biggest categories are social networking (26 per cent), entertainment (10 per cent), and utilities (10 per cent).

That means that nearly 80 per cent of app time is spent on games, social networks and assorted entertainment – clearly, the average app user is interesting in playing more than working on their mobile.

Taking on TV

Flurry also updated its comparison of TV, web, and app usage in the US, incorporating data from comScore, Alexa, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and looking at how the media stack up in December 2012.

Year-on-year, time spent using mobile apps grew 35 per cent, to 127 minutes, while time spent on the web declined 2.4 per cent, to 70 minutes. That means US consumers are spending 1.8 times as much time using apps as the web.

TV still rules consumers leisure time, at a projected 168 minutes per day, but apps now make up 75.6 per cent of that time, compared to just 43.2 in December 2010.

“With new content released via thousands of new apps each day, we expect this trend to continue,” said Flurry CEO Simon Khalaf in a blog post. “In fact, we ultimately expect apps on tablets and smartphones to challenge broadcast television as the dominant channel for media consumption. Compared to the 60-year-old television industry, apps are just over four years old. In particular, tablets will drive growth in app consumption in 2013 as TV-style content and major programming moves to the tablet.”