More Mobile Customers Using Maps, Mostly In Apps

  • June 25, 2010

A new comScore study finds 14% of U.S. mobile users, or 33.5 million people, accessed maps on their devices in April, a 44% increase from a year ago.

People using maps one to three times per month increased 47% to 17.1 million users, while those doing so once a week grew 60% to 11.6 million users. The most frequent users, people looking at maps on a near daily basis, climbed 9% to 4.8 million.

The research firm also found that more people are turning to maps via applications rather than Web browser, 16.7 million compared to 15.6 million. Underlying the preference for maps via apps is the predominance of smartphone owners using maps. The number of smartphone users accessing map apps has nearly tripled in the last year to 12.7 million, while the number of feature phone users doing so has dropped 2% to 4 million.

Likewise, smartphone users getting maps through browsers has nearly doubled to 9 million, while feature phone users going the browser route for maps has fallen 8% to 6.6 million.

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