Big Content Brands Get Heavy Use on Smart Phones, So Do Their Apps

Virtually all of the top sites visited by users on smart phones used an app as the gateway, and virtually all were big and obviously popular content sites. 


Among smartphone users age 18 and older accessing the sites from iOS, Android and RIM smart phones, Google Sites ranked as the top property with nearly 94 million unique visitors, representing 96.9 percent of the mobile audience. 


Facebook ranked second with 78.0 million visitors (80.4 percent reach), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 66.2 million visitors (68.2 percent reach) and Amazon Sites 44.0 million visitors (45.4 percent reach).


Analysis of the share of time spent across apps and browsers revealed that even though these access methods had similar audience sizes, apps drove the lion’s share of engagement, representing 80 percent of the mobile media minutes, comScore says. 

Top Smartphone Properties by Total Unique Visitors (Mobile Browser and App Audience Combined) March 2012 Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Age 18+ on iOS, Android and RIM Platforms Source: comScore Mobile Metrix 2.0
	Audience		Engagement
	Total Unique Visitors (000)	% Reach	Browser % Share of Total Time Spent	App % Share of Total Time Spent
Total Audience (Browsing and Application combined)	97,007	100.0%	18.5%	81.5%
Google Sites	93,954	96.9%	18.9%	81.1%
Facebook	78,002	80.4%	20.0%	80.0%
Yahoo! Sites	66,185	68.2%	25.3%	74.7%
Amazon Sites	44,028	45.4%	14.3%	85.7%
Wikimedia Foundation Sites	39,073	40.3%	99.8%	0.2%
Apple Inc.	38,309	39.5%	0.3%	99.7%
Cooliris, Inc	28,543	29.4%	0.0%	100.0%
AOL, Inc.	28,021	28.9%	47.4%	52.6%
eBay	27,190	28.0%	17.6%	82.4%
Zynga	26,619	27.4%	0.4%	99.6%
Twitter	25,593	26.4%	3.5%	96.5%
Rovio (Angry Birds)	25,057	25.8%	3.7%	96.3%
Weather Channel, The	24,131	24.9%	47.1%	52.9%
Microsoft Sites	23,938	24.7%	82.1%	17.9%
ESPN	23,317	24.0%	56.8%	43.2%