Speedy Load Times, Targeted Ads Crucial for Mobile App Success

by Nathan Eddy

Mobile network-connected tablets generate similar data usage patterns as smartphones, with 80 percent or more of data volume being associated with the media player, browsing and the app store. The report found Android-based tablets generate two times the data volume of Android-based smartphones, the same as reported in the February 2013 Citrix Mobile Analytics Report.

Mobile social networking generates, on average, 8 percent of smartphone subscribers’ daily mobile data volume, although the report noted this percentage fluctuates widely by operator and region. Social networking data volume consists primarily of images (63 percent), followed by video (32 percent) and text (5 percent).

There has been a reduction in Web page download times, thanks to mobile network technology improvements made by mobile operators. These improvements are likely welcome news to content providers, as a third of subscribers will abandon a mobile Website if it takes more than 5 seconds to load, and a majority (54 percent) will give up in 10 seconds or less. If a Web page takes more than 20 seconds to load, you will have lost 68 percent of your audience, the report warned.

More than half (52 percent) of mobile Web pages load in 5 seconds or less, a 3-second improvement over the 8-second average reported in the last Citrix report. An impressive 80 percent of Web pages load in 10 seconds or less, and just 6 percent of Web pages take more than 20 seconds to load, an improvement over the 20 percent of Web pages that took over 20 seconds to load in the same period last year.

Any platform’s media player is involved in the delivery of most video and audio for both iOS-based and Android-based devices. For example, when a subscriber clicks the YouTube app on either an Android or iOS device, the video is actually played using the media player, not the YouTube app. Understanding the content driving the media player is key to effectively managing mobile network load, the report cautioned.

Given the fact that 59 percent of consumers believe that ads do not count toward their quota of data usage, operators and publishers such as Facebook will eventually need to reconcile an emerging conflict, opening the door to more numerous and sophisticated sponsored data plans, the report predicted. The percentage of smartphone subscribers receiving mobile ads increased from 30 percent in 2013 to 50 percent in 2014.

On Long-Term Evolution (LTE) networks, mobile videos stall for an average of 15 seconds per 60 seconds of video. On 3G networks, mobile videos stall for an average of 47 seconds per 60 seconds of video. The number of stalled videos increases as the resolution of the video being served increases, starting at 10.5 percent of videos stalled at 240p resolution and rising to 47 percent for video resolution greater than 720p, Citrix found.

Depending on the content, mobile app developers will want to know when their audience is accessing their app. For example, the report found finance and weather are top-of-mind in the morning, peaking at 8 a.m., while shopping peaks at 9 a.m. and again at 8 p.m. News and blogs capture interest throughout the day, with spikes coincident with breakfast, lunch and dinner. Perhaps unsurprisingly, adult content is most popular in the late evening hours.

The report revealed that the fitness category of mobile health apps tends to generate a higher network load than other mobile health apps, due to the periodic updating of the user’s status, such as a runner’s progress along a route. Citrix expects that activity trackers and other wearables such as the FitBit, Nike+, Pebble and the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch will generate ever-greater network impact as they integrate more fitness and mobile health apps into their functionality.

Ten percent of smartphone subscribers play network-connected games. The report found connected mobile games generate 1.5 percent of an average smartphone subscriber’s data volume, comparable to the volume attributable to mobile advertising. Network-connected games now include downloaded video content, a change from 2013, when no mobile games made use of video sent over the network.