Online mobile application store GetJar—which competes with the iTunes App Store, Android Market, and other venues and claims the “largest open app store” in the world—has published the results of a global consumer survey it commissioned to look at mobile phone users’ app usage, brand loyalty, and acceptance of in-app advertisements. The results: GetJar says about twice as many mobile phone users plan to switch to Android rather than the iPhone when they get their next phone…and that mobile users are surprisingly OK with in-app ads.
“The survey results make it clear that all eyes are on Android, as well as the importance of brand equity in the increasingly competitive mobile app space,” said GetJar’s chief marketing officer Patrick Mork, in a statement. “In addition, the data also reveals that brand marketers and advertisers also have a reason to be hopeful about consumer’s appetite for in-app advertisement.”
GetJar did not reveal who they commissioned to conduct its survey, or how the survey was conducted. Sample bias may be an issue with GetJar’s figures. GetJar offers some iOS applications, but most iPhone users are locked into Apple’s iTunes App Store, so iPhone users may be significantly under-represented in GetJar’s survey. Historically, GetJar users have predominantly used Symbian phones and Java-based feature phones.
According to GetJar’s survey, about one third of mobile phone users spend an hour or more a day using apps on their phone, compared to about half who spend the same amount of time watching television. Some 58 percent of respondents reported using apps more than once a day. Users find apps in a variety of ways—and not always through stores: almost half of respondents said they discovered apps while browsing online, while only 25 percent said they discovered apps in an app store. Some 17 percent say they discovered applications through social media or friends.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the survey found that gaming applications were the most popular with respondents, followed by social networking applications. Users reported that the most important things that users considered in a mobile application store where the ease of searching and the number of free apps available; furthermore, the single biggest factor in deciding whether to download an application was its price. GetJar found that app quality impacts brand perceptions: some 80 percent of respondents said a good app makes a brand more trustworthy, and 72 percent said they were more likely to “engage” with a brand if they thought its app was good.
The survey also found that 73 percent of respondents said they have downloaded an application that had embedded advertising, and some 60 percent of those respondents said they would do so again. Surprisingly, the survey claims one in four respondents made a purchase after clicking on a mobile ad.
GetJar says the “pro-Android” views revealed by the survey bolster its resolve to expand its own program for Android publishers to “secure its position as the premier open Android Market alternative,” although GetJar says they still plan to support BlackBerry and iOS devices.
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