The latest study from comScore shows that social networking is the fastest-growing content category on mobile devices, with web browsers remaining more popular than applications for accessing online content.
78% of smartphone users accessed their browser in April 2010, while 80% of smartphone users accessed applications. In comparison, just 19% of feature phone users accessed their browser, with 17% accessing applications. However, the larger number of feature phones means that web browsers remain more popular overall.
In April 2010, 69.6 million mobile users accessed an application on their phone, up 28% from the previous year. Social Networking usage via apps was up 140% to 14.5 million users, news access was up 124% to 9.3 million, sports was up 113% to 7.7 million and banking was up 113% to 5 million. Social Networking via mobile web browsers was up 90% to almost 30 million people, followed by bank account access (up 69% to 13.2 million users).
The study looked at smartphone and feature phone users aged 13+ in the USA for three-month periods ending April 2010 and April 2009.