A few weeks ago, an agency presented some statistics to me about mobile apps.  Unfortunately, although I did ask for permission to use the statistics, I don’t have details of the source but I thought they were interesting to present on this blog, particularly in the light of Forrester CEO George Colony’s keynote comments on the “App Internet” at the Forrester IT Forum last month.

Mobile devices are changing the way we consume and engage digitally:

• 66% [of mobile device owners] say they can’t live without their phone.
• 64% [of mobile device owners] say mobiles and the Internet have made our life better.
• 71% of smartphone owners have downloaded [at least one] app.
• 28% [of Internet users] connect to the Internet via a mobile [device].
• 20% of all Christmas online sales in 2010 were via a mobile [device].

What I found particularly interesting were two usage patterns that were presented to me for reading articles on smartphones and on tablets:

Smartphone users exhibited four spikes at:

• 6am (early morning/breakfast).
• 9am (start of work day).
• 5-6pm (end of work day commute).
• 8-10pm (couch/prime time, bed time).

Meanwhile, tablet devices are more likely to read at personal prime time – i.e. at the most relaxing time of the day:

I’m not sure that I fit either of these profiles as I tend to use my tablet (my iPad) for my morning/evening commutes, and late at night (in bed) – in between I’m on a laptop, with occasional triaging of email (but not really reading articles) on a smartphone (an iPhone). Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see this marked difference in usage patterns for two classes of mobile device.