Interestingly, in May 2012, Nielsen reported that the average US smartphone owner had 41 apps on his/her phone vs. 32 apps in 2011. So either the calculation above is incorrect or the number of retained/active apps has declined.
The following is comScore’s top 15 US apps list for April 2014 (the most recent data available):
The internet — as represented by apps, which now take up 51% of digital media time — is shrinking. The list of top mobile ad revenue recipients is even shorter than the top apps list.
Forget the percentage specifics in the chart below; the point is the list itself. Google, Facebook, Twitter and Pandora are all “publishers,” though in all but Pandora’s case they’re ad networks too. YP is a publisher but on the list as an ad network. Millennial Media is also a network.
If we look at all these data together what we see is a mobile app universe dominated by a tiny collection of apps vs. the total universe of 1.2 million iPhone apps. An even smaller number of publishers/networks collect the majority of mobile ad revenue.