Overall app usage grew by 76% in 2014

In 2014, according to Flurry Analytics, overall app usage grew by 76%. Flurry defines app usage as a user opening an app and recording what the company call a session.

The company obtained the data by tracking four millions sessions every minute, 2.079-trillion sessions in 2014. On 31 December, with users being busy, sharing, looking for rides, messaging, chatting, the company tracked 8.5-million sessions.

Shopping, Utilities & Productivity, and Messaging experienced triple-digit growth. That’s not surprising, given that mobile devices have become increasingly important for shopping, working, and communication. Working has also begun to see smartphones move in that direction, the notable being the Blackberry Bold.

In comparison to 2013, where retail apps made a big splash, 2014 was the year messaging apps took off.

Notably, sessions in shopping apps on iOS and Android increased by a whopping 174% year-over-year. The biggest growth being on Android, where the shopping category increased by 220%.
Utilities & Productivity apps were also popular in 2014, affirming that smartphones have become our virtual assistance.

Games sessions continued to grow in 2014 though compared to 2013, it slowed down from 61% in 2013 to 30% in 2014. Also not performing as well as the previous year were Music, Media, and Entertainment sessions. The growth rate slowed to 33% from 79% last year.

What is clear is that users are beginning to use apps for productivity rather than entertainment.

Further insights into shopping app sessions reveal that their use spikes between 9 am and noon and then dies, only to spike again at 8 pm. This offers retailers an insight into their marketing and can inform what time they send out newsletters with specials and post specials on social media.