Mobile consumers are divided on which they prefer, mobile apps or mobile Web, according to a recent report from Quixey. The firm commissioned a survey of about 1,000 people to get an idea of how they prefer to use mobile internet.
The stats:
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Almost half of respondents (49.7 percent) have two main gripes against mobile apps: they take up storage (26.1 percent) or they have inconsistent performance (23.6 percent). Females are more concerned about storage than males, and males are more concerned about app performance.
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Most people (34.4 percent) say 'features and functionalities' is the reason they choose mobile apps over mobile Web.
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About 66.4 percent like using the mobile Web since it centralizes content access (32.5 percent), there's no need for new installs (23.3 percent) or there's no need for multitasking between different apps (10.6 percent).
- If all the features and functionality of an app were available without needing to download anything, only 12 percent of people said they'd still prefer to download an app.
The quote:
"As phones become the primary tool for consumers to get information and complete tasks, it will become increasingly important to be able to find a way to offer all the functions that exist within apps and make them accessible to consumers without the app itself," the report said. "We need to create an ecosystem that is not so severely tied to the app, but tied to the dynamic, real-time information people rely on to get tasks done."
The context:
"The future of the mobile experience is evolving and will be about bringing app functionality to users contextually and proactively, not just bringing users to apps where they have to search for the right functions," the report said. While preferences are likely changing as the mobile Web and mobile applications space becomes more mature, some of the roadblocks mentioned in this study could become less relevant. Capacity in smartphones is continually increasing to the point where storage is probably becoming much less of a concern for would-be mobile app users. But as the mobile Web continues catching up on features common in mobile apps like push notifications, the functionality gap between mobile Web and apps decreases.
For the complete report, click here.
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