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Flurry Mobile Smartphone

Mobile addicts could form the 4th most populated country in the world

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By John McCarthy, Opinion Editor

July 21, 2015 | 3 min read

As smartphone adoption spreads, the tech is becoming more sophisticated, the apps better designed and the Candy Crush clones all the more common. Consequently, mass mobile addiction is very quickly becoming a reality.

AOL, Verizon, Millenial Media

Research from mobile analytics firm Flurry found that in the last 12 months, the number of individuals across the globe consulting their smartphones over 60 times a day increased by 59 per cent from 176 million to 280 million.

If these mobile addicts united under the one banner on a specific landmass they would form the fourth most populated nation in the world lagging just behind the USA.

Mobile addicts were found to be most prominently using messaging and social tools, 556 per cent more likely than an average users (who accesses their device between once and 16 times daily). This was followed by utilities and productivity, then games.

The report was prompted by a study by the Bank of America last month, which highlighted how smartphones have become an intrinsic part of peoples’ lives. It found that seven in ten (71 per cent) of those surveyed in the US actually sleep with their smartphones.

Simon Khalaf, senior vice president of publisher product at Flurry, said: “We were most surprised by the finance category. Mobile Addicts use finance apps 2.5 times more than the average mobile consumer. This is an astounding finding given that Bank of America’s history dates back to 1904 and in just eight years almost 50 per cent of its consumers changed banking habits.

“The mobile industry is moving fast. It is actually hard to believe that Mobile Addicts are now 280 million strong… One thing is clear though, Bank of America’s founders didn’t plan that 111 years after the creation of their bank, half of its consumers will only visit one branch—the one in their pocket.”

Furthermore, the number of in use smartphones grew in the period from 1.3bn to 1.8bn.

Flurry Mobile Smartphone

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