We’ve Spent 1.6 Trillion Hours On Mobile So Far In 2020

2020 has been a lot of things. One of them has been mobile: very, very mobile.

Thanks to quarantines and remote work we’re spending more time on mobile, according to a new report from App Annie. Covid-19 changed consumer behavior on mobile “forever,” says App Annie.

What’s different?

• In April, the average user spent almost a third of their waking time on their mobile device: 4.3 hours

• Consumers spent 25% more on mobile apps than ever before: $50 billion in the first half of the year

• Mobile commerce accelerated: people spent more time in shopping apps than during the 2019 holidays

• Mobile ad placements jumped 70% in the first half of the year

“Covid-19 propelled mobile usage forward — achieving growth that would have otherwise taken two to three years,” Lexi Sydow, App Annie’s senior Market Insights Manager said in a statement, echoing comments from a recent TechFirst podcast episode. “As we head into the holiday season and 2021, businesses who prioritize mobile will outpace competitors, as mobile represents a significant driver of revenue growth for businesses.”

Essentially, the change is more and deeper: more use, and deeper integration into everything we do.

App downloads from the iOS App Store and Android’s Google Play topped 64 billion in the first half of the year, App Annie says. That’s up 10% from 2019 numbers. The 27% of waking hours consumers spent on mobile in early 2020 was up 20% from 2019 levels. Shockingly, in some countries like Indonesia, people spend an average of six hours a day on their mobile devices.

What that means, App Annie says, is that mobile is the “first screen,” the screen that people access first and most often.

The pandemic changes were clearly horrific for many people in terms of health as well as economic security, but some business categories did well. Clearly video-conferencing was way up, but so was fintech.

“Four of the five top business apps by time spent in Q2 2020 globally (excluding China) were video conferencing apps,” App Annie says. “Paypal’s mobile growth was a main contributor to their earnings per share growing 86% in Q2 2020.”

The top-ranked video conferencing apps were:

1. ZOOM Cloud Meetings
2. Microsoft Teams
3. Google Meet
4. Cisco Webex Meetings

Along with all that extra time online came a lot of extra advertising: 70% more, according to App Annie’s report. The full report is available here.