Nielsen measured Android smartphone application usage and found Facebook, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Search are among the top apps used in mobile.
What applications are the most popular on the Android platform? Answer: Many
of the same apps that are popular on the desktop Web, which of course includes
the major Google apps.
Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android Market app leads with a 90 percent active reach,
or the percentage of Android smartphone owners who used an app within the last
30 days,
according to new research from Nielsen.
Google Maps, Facebook, Gmail and Google Search all have between 72 percent
and almost 75 percent penetration, said the researcher, which parsed data from
usage meters on thousands of Android smartphones.
These findings mirror the bulk of usage on the wired Web, where Facebook is
the leading social network with over 750 million users.
Nielsen said Facebook users totaled 53 billion minutes on the
social network during May.
Google meanwhile commands fewer than 65 percent search share, is the leading
online map provider, and powers the Gmail app that ranks only behind Yahoo Mail
and Microsoft Hotmail in Webmail usage worldwide.
The fact that Google is able to extend its desktop purview to the mobile Web
bodes well for the company, which aims to dominant mobile search and display
ads just as it does search and display ads on the desktop.
Nielsen discovered some other interesting factoids. Music service Pandora
and game Angry Birds showed similar usage by both men and women via Android
phones, but Facebook showed an active reach of 81 percent for women Android
phone users, versus 69 percent for men Android users.
However, Google+ continues to be male-dominant, Nearly 16 percent of Google+
for Android users in the study were male compared to just 7 percent of Google+
users who are women.
Net-net, the results Nielsen discovered from gauging Android phones showed
much of the same application use from the desktop translated to the smartphone.
No wonder why developers are pouring millions of man hours and dollars into the
mobile Web.
Indeed,
IDC said mobile device users, including smartphone and tablet
owners, will surpass wired device services such as desktops by 2015.
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