The importance of apps has been greatly exaggerated. Only 18% of users buy smartphones for apps
By Florin on 23 Sep 10Smartphones are called smartphones not because they’re “more intelligent than you are”, but because they run complete operating systems and, thus, they let users customize them with a great deal of apps (useful or less useful – that’s another story).
And although you’d think that the availability of apps is one of the main reasons people buy smartphones, it actually isn’t. Or at least that’s what a survey published by Deloitte has concluded.
According to the survey, only 18% of US users who own or plan to own a smartphone say that the presence of apps has an influence on their buying decision. About 58% of the users say that a smartphone’s price and overall features (including quality, size, keyboard style and camera) are the ones that mainly influence their buying decision.
Even so, apps have become quite important in the last few years. Apple, for example, currently offers more than 250,000 applications via App Store (and is making lots of money out of that), while Google’s Android Market hosts about 100,000 apps.
“As devices continue to add functionality, coupled with consumers increasingly learning about valuable apps, this can save them from carrying multiple devices and grant them better access to an array of media, entertainment and information. We expect far more people to download and use apps in the future, which will have a profound impact on smartphone sales,” says Craig Wigginton, partner and telecommunications leader for Deloitte & Touche LLP.
Other findings in Deloitte’s survey:
- 42% percent of app users “have reduced or completely eliminated their use of MP3 players in favor of smartphones or tablets”
- 38% of app users “have ceased or diminished their use of traditional AM/FM radios”
- 30% “are moving away from their handheld videogame consoles”
- 28% “are shunning their stand-alone GPS devices”
You can read more in this press release.
Via USA Today
If you liked the post, you might find these interesting too:
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- Nielsen publishes ‘The State of Mobile Apps’ for smartphones and feature phones so far in 2010
- Microsoft working on Fone+ for developing countries
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