Thirty-five percent of adults in the United States have "apps," or software programs on their cell phones now, but only 24 percent of them are actually using them; 11 percent of cell owners "are not sure if their phone is equipped with apps," according to a new study.
"As with the apps-using population as a whole, downloaders are younger, more educated, and disproportionately male when compared with the total U.S. adult population," according to surveys done by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and The Nielsen Company for the report, "The Rise of Apps Culture."
"An apps culture is clearly emerging among some cell phone users, particularly men and young adults," said Kristen Purcell, Pew Internet Project associate director of research. "Still, it is clear that this is the early stage of adoption when many cell owners do not know what their phone can do. The apps market seems somewhat ahead of a majority of adult cell phone users.”
The "apps" study is the first-ever by Pew. While "apps" have been around for years, on some devices like the Palm, for example, it was really Apple's introduction of its App Store two years ago that propelled the market for downloading free or for-pay programs to mobile phones. The app appetite has grown enough that the first-ever "AppNation" conference is being held this week in San Francisco. More than 800 software developers are attending.
According to The Nielsen Company’s "Apps Playbook" recent study, the average number of apps that smart phone users have on their phones now is 27, up from 22 last December. Not surprisingly, iPhone owners have the most apps — an average of 40, while fast-growing Android users have 25, and BlackBerry owners, 14.
Games are the most popular kind of app, Nielsen said; second on the list: weather apps.
"This is a pretty remarkable tech-adoption story, if you consider that there was no apps culture until two years ago," said Roger Entner, co-author of the Pew report and Nielsen's head of research and insights for telecom practice. "Every metric we capture shows a widening embrace of all kinds of apps by a widening population. It’s too early to say what this will eventually amount to, but not too early to say that this is an important new part of the technology world of many Americans."
Among other findings in the Pew/Nielsen study:
— 29 percent of adult cell phone users have download apps to their phones, and 13 percent say they have paid for apps.
— 47 percent of apps downloaders have paid for an app, "with the remainder saying they only download apps that are free. This means that one in eight adult cell phone users (13 percent) has paid to download an app, with most paying less than $3."
— App users are "disproportionately male, young, educated and affluent."
— Apps users are "mostly male" (57 percent) ... and are more likely than other adults and other cell phone users to be college graduates (39 percent) and to have incomes of $75,000 or more (36 percent)."
— 18- to 29-year-olds "make up only 23 percent of the total U.S. adult population but constitute almost half (44 percent) of the apps-using population. In contrast, while 41 percent of the adult population is age 50 and older, that age group makes up just 14 percent of apps users."
— Overall, 35 percent of adult male cell phone users have downloaded an app, compared with 24 percent of adult female cell phone users.
— 52 percent of 18- to 29-year-old cell users have downloaded an app, but the figure drops to 31 percent among 30- to 49-year-olds and 11 percent among cell users age 50 and older.
— "Young adults download more frequently and have more apps on their phones. While 10 percent of adult cell phone users report downloading an app in the past week, that figure doubles to 20 percent among cell users under age 30. The mean number of apps for adults under 30 is 22."
Nielsen also noted that women are more likely than men to have used game apps, as well as social networking apps like Facebook or Twitter, in the past 30 days, "while the men were more likely to have used a productivity app (29 percent v. 21 percent) or a banking/finance app (31 percent v. 25 percent)."
Source: www.msnbc.com
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