Mobile Shopping Apps Rule in 2014

While mobile app usage in general grew considerably -- 76 percent -- last year, it was apps for mobile shopping that saw the largest increase: 174 percent, according to the latest figures from the mobile analytics firm Flurry. Utilities and productivity apps, as well as messaging and social apps, also saw triple-digit growth of 121 percent and 103 percent, respectively. "As our mobile devices become more and more a part of our everyday lives, we are increasingly using them for always-on shopping, working, and communication," noted Flurry President and CEO Simon Khalaf. "Where years past have seen massive growth in games and entertainment, 2014 was the year apps got down to serious business."
By contrast, game app usage in 2014 grew by just 30 percent, while growth in music, media and entertainment apps came to 33 percent. Other mobile app categories tracked by Flurry also showed double-digit growth in usage: health and fitness (89 percent); travel (89 percent); sports (74 percent); and news and magazines (49 percent).
Retail Meets Mobile in 'Big Way'
Compared to 2013, when messaging apps were the fastest-growing category, "2014 was the year retail came to mobile in a big way," Khalaf wrote Tuesday in a blog post on Flurry's Web site. Shopping apps on Android devices rose the most, by 220 percent.
Microsoft helped push the utilities and productivity category past messaging and social last year, thanks to its "mobile first" push, which included expanding availability of its Office suite from Windows devices to iOS and Android devices. Khalaf noted that Microsoft also helped show its commitment to mobile with its December acquisition of the mobile e-mail startup Acompli.
Purchased by Microsoft for a reported $200 million, Acompli offers its app for free through the Apple App Store and Google Play. The app lets users access and manage multiple e-mail accounts and services from their mobile devices.
Hot Shopping Times: Commute, Lunchtime
To get some deeper insights into how people are increasingly using mobile apps to shop, Flurry looked at a sample of 100,000 Android users in the U.S. and assessed their shopping activities based on where they most likely were -- home or away from home -- during different hours of the day.
The analysis, Khalaf wrote, showed that, "We shop on our phones when we are out and about during the day, with shopping app use spiking during the commute time of 9 a.m. and lunchtime at noon. We're focused on things other than shopping in the afternoon hours (perhaps working to support that shopping habit), but mobile shopping spikes again during prime time at 8 p.m., at home."
Such usage patterns present great opportunities and challenges for retailers, Khalaf noted, offering as an example Target, whose mobile customers spent more time in 2014 on in-app usage than on its Web site. "Retailers need to adjust to the new reality of a multitude of stores in every consumer's pocket, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week," he added.