Commentary

280 Million Mobile Phone Addicts, Up 59% in a Year

Are you a mobile addict?

If so, you’re one of 280 million mobile addicts globally, a size close to the entire population of the United States.

An interesting tabulation by Flurry Insights found that not only is the number of mobile addicts large, but also that it has grown substantially just since last year.

Flurry measures 2 billion smart devices, a number also that has grown 38% since last year.

The firm broke down users as Regular Users (consumers who use apps one to 16 times a day) and Super Users (those who use apps between 16 and 60 times a day).

Mobile Addicts were defined as those who launch apps 60 times or more a day (and you know who you are). Here’s the breakdown by category of how many app users there are in each category:

  • Mobile Addicts – 280 million
  • Super Users – 590 million
  • Regular Users – 985 million

But it’s the growth rate that’s significant, with many more people becoming mobile addicts, growing 59% in in just one year. Here’s the growth rate of mobile app users by category from last year:

  • 59% -- Mobile Addicts
  • 34% -- Super Users
  • 25% -- Regular Users

Despite the increase and the overall number of app-addicted phone users, retailers just can’t seem to get a significant piece of the action.

Studies regularly show that mobile shoppers take mobile websites over apps for commerce any day of the week.

The Flurry analysis only adds to this, finding that of the top five categories where mobile app addicts are ahead of regular users, commerce doesn’t make the list.

The top category is messaging, followed by utilities, games, finance and news and magazines.

Retailers need just a little of that mobile addict action.

4 comments about "280 Million Mobile Phone Addicts, Up 59% in a Year".
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  1. Douglas Ferguson from College of Charleston, July 16, 2015 at 1:12 p.m.

    Addict is such a loaded term. Aficionado, big fan, dedicated user all mean the same, without the pejorative baggage. Five times an hour does not seem dysfunctional to me. It just means that apps are replacing web pages. Nobody ever claimed over 60 web screens per day was an addiction.

  2. Chuck Martin from Chuck Martin, July 16, 2015 at 1:48 p.m.

    Just the term defined by the research. As to Web page views, guess it coud be argued that if there were 60 separate PC-Web sessions, it could seem like a large amount.

  3. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, July 16, 2015 at 5:38 p.m.

    Hardly a big surprise. In almost any activity---beer drinking, having sex, collecting stamps, championing TV programmatic buying, eating pasta, etc. a skewed distribution of usage relative to total users is evident. Typically 20% of the users account for 40-50% of the activity, with various gradations down to the lightest user segment. So, mobile phones are no exception. As for the percent change figures, of course the smallest group---in this case, the "addicts" will gain more rapidly---until the category matures and stabilizes.

  4. Chuck Martin from Chuck Martin, July 16, 2015 at 5:57 p.m.

    Thanks Ed, good research point observations. Like the old 80-20 rule.

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About the Author

Chuck Martin is Editor of the AI & IoT Daily at MediaPost and writes the daily Connected Thinking column. He is a NY Times Business bestselling author and his latest book is “Digital Transformation 3.0” (The New Business-to-Consumer Connections of The Internet of Things.) He is CEO of Net Future Institute and a frequent keynote speaker internationally. Follow him on Twitter @chuckmartin and contact him at Chuck@MediaPost.com.