Apple iPhone users make more and greater use of mobile e-commerce apps than their Android smartphone user counterparts, according to a new Arbitron study. More than two-thirds (67.5%) of iPhone users use mobile apps for commerce as compared to 43.9% of Android users, according to the U.S. Arbitron Mobile Trends Panels Service.
Moreover, iPhone users are spending more time with mobile commerce apps than Android users – 105.3 vs. 87.6 minutes/month, respectively. iPhone users also do more in the way of virtual shopping – 35 vs. 29.5 sessions/month, according to Arbitron.
Gauging activity on individual mobile commerce apps, Arbitron found eBay’s mobile app was used by the largest share of U.S. smartphone panelists (14.3%). Mobile eBay cybershoppers engaged in an average 34.6 mobile eBay sessions for an average of 1 hour 48 minutes during February.
At 8.1%, Passbook, Apple’s iOS digital wallet, was the fourth most widely used mobile commerce app by Arbitron Mobile smartphone panelists. Though it serves “as a portal to other mobile commerce apps,” Passbook “garnered far less average time in use and far fewer sessions than apps that include the ability to search for something to buy,” Arbitron noted in its press release.
A much larger share of Arbitron mobile panelists reported accessing mobile commerce Web domains, such as Amazon, directly as opposed to accessing them via mobile commerce apps. Time spent and number of sessions per month were “significantly smaller” for Web domains than for mobile apps however.
Amazon was the leading Web domain for smartphone commerce, accessed by 34.7% of Arbitron U.S. smartphone panelists during February. In contrast, 13% used the Amazon Mobile app.
Smartphone users accessing Amazon via its Web domain spent much less time than those using the mobile app – 19.8 minutes/month vs. 40 minutes/month, respectively. Those accessing Amazon via their smartphone Web browsers also access the mobile commerce service less often – 5.7 average sessions per month vs. 10.9 for the Amazon mobile app.
