Baidu Finds Usage of Standalone Mobile Browser Decelerate

Baidu Releases its findings on mobile usage as of Q1 2013.

Below are some highlights:

1. The gap between time spent on mobile devices and that on PC deepended to 29% as of March 2013.
2. Users spend more time on mainstream native apps while the rest apps have difficulty gaining traction. Reasons for the latter include 1) users don’t visit app stores often; 2) users seldom use some apps or even forget them. 60% of apps wouldn’t be opened in the week after being downloaded, and one third of them wouldn’t be used in a month.

3. The total time spent on native apps increased by 7% and some categories saw much higher growth rate; for instance, video/audio apps increased by 31%, online shopping & payments 34%, search 20%, and maps & navigation 16%.

4. The average time spent on mobile browsers increased only by 2%, much lower than the 7%. Not only do users click open them less frequently, but also standalone mobile browsers are less frequently fired up with link clicks in third-party apps — for mainstream apps including Weibo, WeChat and search apps have had built-in browsers.