With smartphone penetration now at 50 percent in the U.S., the world of apps is seeing a knock-on effect in their popularity: according to a new report from Nielsen, mobile consumers are downloading more apps than ever before, with the average number of apps owned by a smartphone user now at 41 — a rise of 28 percent on the 32 apps owned on average last year.
But at the same time, there are hints of people possibly approaching a limit to how much they might use them: despite the rise in app numbers, the amount of time that people are spending in apps has remained essentially flat: collectively, they are being used for 39 minutes per day today, compared to 37 minutes in 2011.
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This morning, Nielsen is putting hard numbers to how consumers like to shop with their smartphones, backing up trends we already suspected to be the case. In particular, the new report examines how consumers use their phones when shopping out there in the real world (what’s that?) – using phones to compare prices, scan barcodes and even redeem coupons. Not surprisingly, how you use your phone has a lot to do with where you’re shopping and what you’re shopping for, says Nielsen.
The trends are sort of obvious, but there are some interesting bits to be pulled out of the data. → Read More
Nielsen today became the latest analyst house to call it for smartphones outnumbering more basic devices in the U.S. The company says that in March 2012 smartphones were in use by 50.4 percent of consumers in the country, with Android continuing its domination in the space, accounting for 48.5 percent of all smartphone handsets.
Apple is not a very close second, at 32 percent, but through that percentage it has remained the single-biggest smartphone handset brand.
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Just watching TV without also using a tablet or smartphone at the same time seems to be on its way out. Earlier this month, Nielsen launched the first part of its report on primetime TV viewers in the U.S. and today, the analytics company is taking a deeper dive into the demographics of those who simultaneously watch TV and use their tablets. According to Nielsen, 45% of tablet owners watch TV and use their tablet together at least once a day. A whopping 69% say they do so at least several times a week and only 12% say they never do this. → Read More
A new report from Nielsen this morning delves into the mobile and social behavior of U.S. Hispanic consumers, finding they’re highly engaged in their usage of smartphones, online video, social networking and other types of entertainment. According to the study, Hispanics outpace all over ethnic groups in mobile downloads of music and photos, and are more likely to watch video online and on the their mobile phones than others. → Read More
It’s no secret that most of us put more stock in the recommendations we get from friends than traditional forms of advertising. What’s interesting, though, is that while most consumers also increasingly trust online reviews and ads, trust in paid advertising on television, magazines and newspapers has been declining pretty rapidly. The latest data from Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising Survey shows just how dramatic this decline is: while 92% of consumers say they trust word-of-mouth recommendations, less than half trust paid ads in traditional media outlets. The trust in these ads has declined by more than 20% since 2009. → Read More
For anyone who’s loved to watch Twitter reactions or a liveblog of a big event on TV, this will probably come as no surprise. For advertisers and broadcasters who haven’t figured out how to capitalize on this, you are missing a trick: we are fast becoming a culture of people who love to use devices like smartphones and tablets while watching television.
According to the latest study from Nielsen covering Q4 2011, in the U.S., a full 86 percent of tablet owners and 88 percent of smartphone owners said that they used their devices while watching regular TV at least once in a 30-day period. Nearly half (45 percent) actually did this on daily basis with their tablets, with 41 percent saying they watched TV while tapping on a smartphone every day.
But what’s perhaps surprising is that, while sites like GetGlue and Twitter have capitalized on the idea of social streams coinciding with TV viewing, Nielsen says the most popular activity is actually checking email, with the second most-popular activity being related to checking content related to the program or products being advertised around it. → Read More
A little bit of news from Nielsen that flew under the radar a few days ago hints at big things ahead for the measurement firm and its goals of understanding user behavior across all platforms. The company said it was teaming up with Disney/ABC Television Group to measure video consumption trends on the iPad.
In the study, participants will download a special “metering” app to their devices, which will analyze the reach, duration frequency and pageviews associated with both their apps and web usage in an effort to provide better insight into actual trends associated with user behavior, as opposed to self-reported data. → Read More
New numbers out from Nielsen today point to just how close the U.S. is to having more smartphone than feature phone users: analysts say 49.7 percent of cell phone users currently own a smartphone, a big leap on the 36 percent who owned smartphones only a year ago.
What’s increasingly clear in that growth is that, at least in the U.S., no other platform is proving to be a contender against Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.
Currently, Android-based smartphones account for 48 percent of all smartphones owned in the U.S., while Apple’s different versions of the iPhone account for 32 percent. Both of those shares have grown: in September 2011, Nielsen said that Android’s share was 40 percent and Apple’s 28 percent. → Read More
There’s been lots of debate about whether mobile apps or the web have the upper hand when it comes to making content for smartphones, and when it comes to using it. Some interesting insights from Nielsen out today on how in the case of mobile shopping, for now the main audience in the U.S. seems to be much more interested in using the mobile web over store-specific apps.
The research, which took into account data from some 5,000 Android and iOS smartphones in the U.S., doesn’t spell out how much money is actually spent on mobile web versus apps, and it looks like at least in the period covered by the research — which included the holiday shopping season — the results may have been particularly skewed by the sheer force of Amazon. → Read More
If you own a tablet and have children, chances are that this will not come as news to you. For those who don’t but work in mobile, it’s something worth remembering when you’re concocting up your next big product: Kids are crazy about tablets.
According to some research out today from Nielsen in the U.S., in households that own a tablet, seven out of 10 children under the age of 12 use them. And that usage is on the rise: those numbers are for Q4 2011, and are a nine percent increase on the quarter before. → Read More
Digital audience measurement company comScore this morning reported its earnings for Q4 and full year 2011. Last quarter, comScore says it achieved record revenue of $62.6 million, a 22 percent increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2010.
However, comScore posted a net loss of $3.3 million, or a loss of $0.10 per share, for the quarter. The reason isn’t hard to find: the company says it includes $7.8 million in costs related to litigation with Nielsen and the related settlement. → Read More
Nielsen just released its latest numbers with regard to new smartphone owners, and it would seem that the iPhone (particularly the 4S) is quite popular among those migrating over to the smartphone segment.
In fact, since the iPhone 4S launched in October, the number of recent smartphone buyers who chose the iPhone has reached 44.5 percent, up from just 25 percent in October. → Read More
Online audience measurement and Web analytics companies Nielsen and comScore have settled their patent disputes, according to a joint statement released this morning.
Nielsen filed suit against its rival in March 2011, accusing comScore of infringing five patents it owns that relate to measuring and displaying online content. Sure enough, comScore countersued Nielsen just a few days later.
Now, the companies have seemingly buried the hatchet and come to this elaborate agreement:
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Nielsen is reporting today that teens have more than tripled mobile data consumption and also continue to hold top spot as the most engaged mobile messaging segment.
The report states that “In the third quarter of 2011, teens age 13-17 used an average of 320 MB of data per month on their phones, increasing 256 percent over last year and growing at a rate faster than any other age group”. → Read More
According to new data from Nielsen, Android has continued to pick up steam in the United States, and retains its crown as the most-used smartphone OS during Q3 2011. Google’s mobile OS now accounts for 43% of U.S. smartphones, up from the 39% we saw back in July. Apple’s iOS, on the other hand, has remained lock-steady at 28% this whole time, putting it at a distant second.
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Today, Nielsen announced it’s acquiring Marketing Analytics, Inc., a leader in analytics and advanced planning software. The company currently has 52 employees, all of whom will join the Nielsen team. The deal also involves the acquisition of other assets, including software and ongoing client projects.
The acquisition’s goal is to enable Nielsen to better provide marketers of consumer goods with the “most complete and timely view of the impact of media and marketing,” the company says in a release. This would be a distinct advantage when developing marketing plans across channels, including online and offline ads, in-store promotions, and consumer promotions. → Read More
SoundScan, Nielsen’s report that tracks point-of-purchase music sales across real and digital sources, was released today, and at long last contains a few rays of hope for the beleaguered music industry. The midyear sales data shows that, among other things, for the first time since 2004, album sales actually increased in the first half of this year. Now, before you fall out of your chair, total album sales are only up 1 percent, so it’s not as if sales are blowing the roof off, but at least they’re no longer plummeting. → Read More
Nielsen ran monthly surveys of mobile consumers in the United States from July to September 2010, and said back then that 33 percent expressed interest for an Apple iPhone, while slightly more than a quarter (26 percent) said they desired a device with Android and 13 percent said they wanted a Blackberry device.
This morning, Nielsen posited that those same surveys for January 2011 to March 2011 now show that 31 percent of consumers who plan to get a new smartphone indicated that Android was now their preferred OS. Apple’s iOS has slipped slightly in popularity, to 30 percent. → Read More
Nielsen has just released new data on U.S. smartphone share. According to the report, smartphone powered by Android operating systems (29 percent) is pulling ahead of RIM’s Blackberry (27 percent) and Apple iOS (27 percent).
But Nielsen says that because RIM and Apple create and sell their own smartphones with their operating systems, these companies are actually in a better position in the three-way race (in terms of device manfuacturers). Because Google licenses its OS to device manufacturers, the Android ecosystem is more fragmented. → Read More
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