Survey Results: Mobile Web Has More Users While Mobile Apps See Higher Engagement

Finland-based mobile analytics provider, CEM4Mobile Solutions, has published new survey results detailing consumer preference in regards to mobile apps vs. the mobile Web in terms of engagement, unique users and mobile ad impressions.

The company completed its research by using a sample of over 56 million mobile impressions from devices where both apps and mobile Web browsing were supported.  The results show that while the mobile Web sees more traffic and unique users as opposed to native apps, the engagement is much higher with native mobile apps.  In looking at the survey respondents, 90.15% of all unique users used the mobile Web, while just 9.85% used apps.  The sum of all visits was similar, with the mobile Web seeing 81.66% of all respondents while apps saw just 18.34%.

In looking at mobile ad impressions, 65.39% were shown via the mobile Web while 34.61% came from mobile apps.  While these results clearly indicate a preference for the mobile Web in terms of sheer users, it can’t compete in terms of keeping users engaged.  CEM4Mobile broke down the time spent within a mobile app vs. the mobile Web on three leading mobile OSs — Android, Apple iOS and Symbian.  Here’s the breakdown:

These results fall in the line with the notion that mobile apps are popular right now, and will remain to be for the foreseeable future, simply because it’s what mobile users are most comfortable with and what brands and mobile developers have flocked to since the iPhone made mobile apps the “next big thing” in terms of mobile consumption.  As HTML5 grows in adoption, however, the shift to the mobile Web is inevitable.