Mobile browser traffic is twice as much as app traffic in the US: Report

tech2 News StaffSep 28, 2015 12:33:36 IST

A new report has now pointed out that mobile browser traffic is actually, twice that of mobile app traffic. It looks like people still prefer to browse through a few websites, rather than heading to various other apps which offer the same information.

Image: Morgan Stanley

According to the just-released Morgan Stanley report, this news turns out great for brand marketers, who are continually looking for ways to reach new customers and also, for those who are facing higher and higher mobile user acquisition costs.

Image: Morgan Stanley

However, this report is referenced only the top 50 mobile properties in the US and not the entire web/mobile space. According to the report, only 12 of those top 50 mobile properties have larger app than mobile web audiences, and those are mainly from tech companies such as Google, which has four of the top 12, and Snapchat, Pinterest, Yahoo, Netflix, Pandora and so on.

In addition, Morgan Stanley found out that YouTube is used more via the app, rather than the web. Also, it is rather shocking that Instagram and SnapChat have as much mobile web traffic as they do, which is reportedly almost half as much, in SnapChat’s case.

Image: Flurry

On the other hand, a report by VentureBeat points out that this information appears to be 'fly in the face' of a report which states that the app is winning, capturing 80-90 percent of our time on mobile. The report by Flurry claims that only 20 percent of American consumers’ time on mobile devices is spent on the web and a massive majority, 80 percent, is spent in apps which include games, news, productivity, utility, social networking apps and so on.

Image: comScore

The numbers do seem to be quite confusing as another report released this month by comScore stated that 87 percent of all time spent on mobile in the US was spent in mobile apps. Not only are we spending almost 9 out of every 10 minutes in apps, but that number has grown 90 percent since 2013, while mobile web time has grown only 53 percent in the same period.

In India, the country’s largest fashion retail portal Myntra had closed down its website in May and moved to an app-only platform. It was said that its parent company Flipkart also had plans to follow suit by September, however the change has not been implemented yet. However, Twitter fans went on to state as to how this was a 'bad move'.

The company had stated that 95 percent of Internet traffic comes through mobile, and 70 percent sales are generated through smartphones. So even if desktop users abandon the website, they aren’t really losing too much.

After Myntra, taxi aggregator Ola also went mobile-app only across its 100 cities from August. Ola had stated that, "from just about 20 per cent of booking requests on the app at launch, Ola (now) receives as much as 99 per cent of its bookings through the app at the current scale."

Many of us, the desktop generation, found these moves to be a little ludicrous. No way to access the site from the desktop? No presence on the internet as we know it? Not even a mobile website sounded a little too alienating. The biggest debate was, wouldn't this move (app-only) be an invasion of privacy?

For the moment, many online portals such as Amazon and Snapdeal won’t be adopting an app-only strategy, but it looks like, in the near future, many e-commerce websites may adopt to the app-only platform looking at the number game and how, many users prefer to opt for an app, rather than the browser in India.