An app is considered to be used every time it is opened, thus initiating a ‘session’ which is noted by Flurry. With the exception of games all categories grew last year but the clear leader in terms of growth was ‘personalization’ which includes things like emoji keyboards. In fact an emoji app launched by the inexplicably popular Kim Kardashian shot straight to the top of the Apple App Store chart as soon as it was launched late last year.

Personalization app use grew by 332% as people sought to add value to their mobile messages, and the other big growers were news & magazines, with tablets especially strong in this area, and utilities & productivity, which confirms the trend of mobile devices superseding PCs in all areas.

Flurry drilled down specifically into the growth in app use on phablets, which are generally defined as smartphones with screen sizes in excess of five inches. Half way to being tablets as they are, it’s not surprising to see media consumption to be increasing much more rapidly on them than the mobile device average. It should be noted, however, that phablets are increasingly becoming the standard form factor, especially since Apple joined the party.

Telecoms.com