comScore: Survey shows that 65% of Americans download zero apps in a single month

Since Apple released the iPhone App Store in the summer of 2008, iOS mobile applications have quickly become popular. According to data from consulting firm comScore, in the United States, mobile applications account for 52% of users' total digital media consumption time, a significant increase from 40% in early 2013. In June this year, Apple said that the total number of app downloads in the App Store reached 75 billion, and in July, Apple even said that the App Store revenue hit the highest monthly record in history, and the total number of people who downloaded apps that month also set a new record.

But according to a recent mobile app report released by comScore, the vast majority of American smartphone users do not download even one app per month.

Among all smartphone users in the United States, only about one-third download apps on average each month, and most of them download 1-3 apps. ComScore pointed out in the report that "7% of active smartphone users download apps on average each month, accounting for almost 50% of all downloads by smartphone users in the United States in a single month."

This isn’t because apps are useless—more than half of U.S. smartphone users open an app every day. It’s also not because they’re expensive: The vast majority of apps are free to download. comScore analysts believe this phenomenon shows that people don’t need too many apps, and that the apps users already have are enough to meet most of their needs. Almost all smartphone users use mobile apps, comScore said, “but the time a user spends on a single app accounts for a staggering 42% of his or her total time using apps.”

ComScore pointed out in the report that although new applications are emerging in an endless stream, breakthrough applications are very rare. Among the top 25 applications with the highest frequency of users, most of them are from mature companies, including Facebook, Google, Pandora and Yahoo.

In addition, comScore believes that it is still difficult for users to discover and download new apps. The app discovery mechanism of Apple's App Store is not perfect, which leads to users' over-reliance on rankings; the App Store's search engine also performs poorly and lacks sufficient editorial recommendation functions. Under such circumstances, "the rich get richer, while those smart new apps are becoming increasingly difficult to be noticed."