Corporate and enterprise users have long viewed smartphones as a bastion of communications, a tool to “do important things” like access email, get reminders, manage contacts, and view documents—activities strongly within the realm of “work.” But as smartphones have penetrated the consumer market…guess what? Consumers aren’t as concerned with using the devices for “work,” opting instead for fun and entertainment. So it’s no surprise that media metrics firm comScore has found that the most popular applications for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch aren’t productivity applications: they’re games.
Leading the back is Tapulous’s Tap Tap Revenge, which comScore estimates was installed by roughly one in three iTunes App Store users by February 2009. And of the top 25 titles downloaded for the devices, fully a dozen are classified as games (including Touch Hockey: FSS, Pac-Man, iBowl, and Labyrinth in the top ten), another four applications are categorized as “entertainment,” and three are for social networking (Facebook, MySpace and AIM.
The only iPhone application in the top 25 downloaded apps to be classified as a utility? Flashlight.
comScore is also categorizing iPhone and iPod touch application users as a “highly desirable audience” to advertisers: on the whole, they’re heavily engaged with online media content and have higher-than-average incomes.
