Distimo Report: Social Networking Apps Analysis

Today we are happy to share with you a summary of the latest Distimo Report, "Social Network App Analysis".

In partnership with Distimo, we publish their monthly reports here on Ericsson Labs for the benefit of our readers.

The introduction of smartphones transformed the mobile phone from a calling (and texting) device to a device that can do basically everything. One of the most important things, however, remains the social aspect of the phone. Calling is not always the primary task of the phone anymore but in general, social activities are still at the core of every smartphone. Amongst other things: texting, media and location-based services (LBS) are the most-used services on smartphones. This month’s Distimo Report examines what mobile social networks are doing well, and what mobile social networks are winning in which countries. Applications that reside in the social or photography category in the Apple App Store for iPhone and aim to build a network are included in this month's report.

The major findings are:

• In the past two years the social category grew much faster than the overall app store average. The download volume among the top 100 most popular applications in the Apple App Store for iPhone in the US surged by 43 percent, however, the volume among the top 100 most popular social applications was 193 percent higher in July 2012 than it was in July 2010.
• There are large differences in the appetite for social applications per country. The United States is the most social savvy as the download volume in the social category is 20 percent of that of the Top Overall apps. Users in Europe and South East Asia are the least social-minded on mobile. In most of the countries in those regions this percentage does not exceed 10 percent.
• The most popular mobile social network aggregated across all countries during the period July 2010 – June 2011 and July 2011 - June 2012, was Facebook. However, in many mainly Asian countries, Facebook was not the most popular anymore in July 2011 - June 2012. Applications like LINE, WeChat and Viber took over the leading position of Facebook.
• Instagram became the second most popular social app on iPhone within one year (between July 2011 - June 2012) aggregated over the 20 largest countries. Instagram could have potentially harmed Facebook’s dominant position, which might indicate why Facebook acquired Instagram.
• Among 10 of the largest markets in July 2012, Facebook clearly was not the largest social network application in terms of downloads anymore. Instagram, in particular, reaped a lot more downloads in July 2012, and other applications like Twitter, Skype and Whatsapp were also more dominant.

For full details of this month's report, click here.