Mobile Addicts Grew 59% in the Last Year

Consumers who launch applications 60 times or more per day are called “mobile addicts” by Flurry.

The number of global mobile users who do so grew from 176 million in the second quarter of  2014 to 280 million in the second quarter of 2015, a 59 percent  increase.

From the second quarter of  2014 to the second quarter of  2015, the total population of smart devices measured by Flurry grew from 1.3 billion to 1.8 billion, a 38 percent year over year growth.

“Regular Users,” consumers who use apps between once and 16 times daily, grew from 784 million to 985 million in the same period, a 25 percent increase.

“Super Users,” consumers who use apps between 16 and 60 times daily, grew from 440 million to 590 million, a 34 percent increase.

Those findings are consistent with a similar report sponsored by Bank of America, which indicated U.S. consumers are constantly connected to their smartphones.

Mobile Addicts interact with virtually every category of smartphone apps, but also  use some categories of apps at rates over 100 percent higher than “average” users.

Messaging and social apps are clearly the leading apps used by Mobile Addicts. In fact, Mobile Addicts use Messaging apps 6.56 times (an over-index of 556 percent) more than an average mobile consumer.

Flurry says “messaging has become mobile’s killer application.” But Mobile Addicts are using their smart device as the sole computing device and conducting every aspect of their lives on that device.