• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, April 11, 2017

At least for the moment, apps appear to be beating out browsers in the battle for mobile users’ attention.  

This year, the average U.S. adult will spend 2 hours and 25 minutes a day using mobile apps -- up 10.3% over last year, eMarketer finds. That means mobile app time will reach 19.9% of total daily media time this year.

More to the point, for mobile Web users, their app time now represents 84.9% of total mobile time spent -- with mobile Web browsing accounting for the remainder. 

Why are apps hogging so much of users' time? It all has to do with the time-consuming activities associated with apps, according to eMarketer principal analyst Cathy Boyle.  

These activities include “listening to digital audio, social networking, gaming, video viewing and messaging,” Boyle notes in a new report. “Each of these are time-intensive activities that consumers conduct with a high level of frequency.” 

Additionally, “An app provides a direct-access point from the home screen of a mobile device, and a native app experience is typically slicker and faster than a comparable Web experience,” Boyle notes.

Yet, the number of apps being used regularly seems to be dropping, as users concentrate their activities within core apps, eMarketer observes.  

In 2016, U.S. consumers used an average of 21 apps per month on their smartphones.  By 2019, that number will drop to 20.1 apps, the research firm forecasts.

“Major publishers are combining multiple functionalities into their apps, contributing to the gradual consolidation of the app market,” Jaimie Chung, forecasting analyst at eMarketer, comments in the same report.

The apps consumers use are mainly concentrated within social networks (i.e., Facebook), Google, and utilitarian apps, such as maps and messaging apps. 

Time spent on the social network is growing, but only on mobile, eMarketer notes. On their laptops and desktops, the time U.S. adults spend using Facebook is stagnant, at an average of 6 minutes a day for U.S. adults.