There’s nothing like getting real application usage data from real users. And Onavo provides that for “a few million” iOS users of its data compression service. The big winners according to Onavo’s latest rankings were: Vine, Chrome, and (once again) Yahoo apps.
Since launching in January on iOS, Vine grew from 1.77 percent of U.S. iPhone users for that month to 10.7 percent in May. And the number of Vine users grew an impressive 39.9 percent from April to May. Google Chrome — which is also arrived on iOS last summer – also saw increased usage — perhaps because iPhone users aren’t thrilled with Safari. According to Onavo: “During the first quarter, Chrome stayed relatively stable around 10 percent, but in April it jumped up to 14.3 percent and in May it jumped further to 17.4 percent.”
But pictures are worth a thousand words:
And, it appears that the uptick in use of Yahoo apps that Onavo previously tracked is continuing, perhaps due to a recent Flickr app refresh and the introduction of its Apple award-winning Weather app.
- Yahoo Weather grew 31.9 percent to 3.73 percent of users in May from 2.83 percent in April.
- Mail gained 6.91 percent to 2.13 percent of users in May from 2 percent in April.
- Flickr gained 41.3 percent to 1.15 percent in May from 0.81 percent in April.
Onavo has access to this behavior data because its free iOS app helps iPhone and iPad users minimize their monthly bandwidth charges by compressing application data in the cloud. In return, users provide Onavo with information about how long they actually engage with their apps.
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
- Survey: How apps can solve photo management
- Analyzing the wearable computing market
- The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro