ComScore released data today that reveals social networking as the fastest growing activity/category in mobile. This mirrors Nielsen data out yesterday that showed Facebook as the top mobile application on most of the top smartphone platforms.
ComScore breaks down the numbers in terms of app and mobile browser access:
In April 2010, 69.6 million mobile users accessed an application on their phone, an increase of 28 percent from the previous year . . . Social Networking experienced the strongest growth in app access, increasing 240 percent to 14.5 million users.
Nearly 73 million mobile users accessed their browser in April, an increase of 31 percent from the previous year . . . Social Networking ranked as the fastest-growing category accessed via browser, growing 90 percent from the previous year to reach almost 30 million users . . .
Don’t take any of these numbers as exact or gospel; they reflect however the direction the market is headed.
It’s interesting to note the differences between the app-using and browser-using audiences. Browser users aren’t accessing maps, compared to app users. In addition, search is more widely used by the browser crowd than in the app world. Weather also doesn’t really appear in the browser environment. And news is less popular there too.