According to a 2017 Mary Meeker report, the number of hours spent on the Internet every year is still growing, but the divide between desktop and mobile is becoming clearer. In 2016, Americans spent three more hours a day accessing the internet on their mobile devices (10 times more than 2008) than they did on their desktop or laptop.

Users downloaded 178 billion apps in 2017, and that number is growing.

The number of mobile app downloads is growing steadily every year. In 2017, there were 178 billion app downloads. That number is projected to grow to 205 billion this year and 258 billion in 2022 — a 45 percent increase over five years.

Mobile apps are expected to generate revenue of 188.9 billion by 2020.

In 2016, total revenue from mobile app downloads, ads, and in-app purchases was estimated to be 88 billion dollars. By 2020, that figure is estimated to be 188 billion dollars. The 113 percent increase in four years may sound silly, but these numbers reflect that consumers are more connected to their mobile devices and in-app purchases are becoming increasingly more convenient.

Approximately 25 percent of all mobile apps are games.

Of all the mobile apps in the Apple App Store, the most popular category for developers is gaming apps. About 25 percent of all mobile apps are games. This is two and a half times more than the second most downloaded category (business) and four times more than entertainment, the fifth most downloaded category of apps.

Only 65 percent of smartphone users have game apps on their phones.

Although gaming apps are the most commonly created, only 65 percent of smartphone users have at least one game app on their device. In contrast, over 90 percent of smartphone users have a web browser, communication app, social app, utility app, entertainment app, search app or shopping app. The demand for gaming apps does not meet the supply. While many of these categories have pre-installed apps on new devices, the gaming category lags behind others in entertainment, shopping, lifestyle, and productivity.

More than 50 percent of smartphone users in the US download new mobile apps per month.

Half of the smartphone users in the US said they downloaded zero new apps on average per month during the quarter of 2017, despite the increasing use of mobile apps. Combine this with the number of people who have downloaded an app, and nearly two-thirds of your smartphone users download an app or less each month.

Smartphone users spend 38 percent of their mobile app time on social networking and music apps.

When it comes to total time spent on apps by category, social networking apps make up over 20 percent of total usage time, while music apps such as Spotify and Apple Music come in second at 18 percent.

After shopping online, 42 percent of consumers use a shopping app or a communication app.

When a smartphone user is shopping online — in their web browser or mobile app — the next type of app they open is most likely to open a shopping app, communication, or social app. This could indicate that customers are enjoying the moment and prefer to keep shopping or tell their friends about what they have bought.

In 2017, 18 to 24-year-olds spent 66 percent of their digital media time using smartphone apps.

Regardless of where they spend their digital media time each day, young people are more likely to use a mobile device, while older groups are more likely to use a desktop. To take it a step further, 18 to 44 year-olds spend more than 50 percent of their digital time on mobile apps.

Young smartphone users spend more time on mobile apps.

Younger demographics spend more hours using mobile apps than older demos. The average 18 to 24-year-old spends more than three hours a day using mobile apps on their phones.

Mobile users spend 87 percent of their time on apps and only 13 percent on the web.

The divide between mobile app usage and mobile web usage has increased. In 2017, smartphone and tablet users spent 87 percent of their time on apps. That means that for every hour spent on the web, users spend about seven hours using mobile apps.

Mobile websites get more visitors than mobile apps, but visitors spend more time on apps.

Compared to the Top 500 Mobile Apps and Top 500 Mobile Websites, the latter received 8.7 million unique visitors per month. The number of minutes each visitor spends on mobile apps is 16 times the number of minutes spent on the web.

Millennials are three times more excited about new mobile apps and features than older consumers.

More than two in three millennials are always looking for new apps and want to do more with the apps they already have. In contrast, about three-fourths of mobile users ages 55 and older are not looking for new apps and feel satisfied with the functionality of the apps they have.

Millennials are more willing to pay for mobile apps, buying more than 1/3 per month.

In 2017, only 36 percent of Millennials made zero app purchases the year before, while 80 percent of smartphone users ages 80 and older did the same. Over the same period, 36 percent of millennials bought five or more apps, compared to just three percent of users ages and 55 and up.

In 2017, 46 percent of Millennials made 5+ in-app purchases, and 70 percent made more than one.

Just as millennials are more comfortable buying apps, they are more comfortable making purchases within apps. Nearly half of Millennial smartphone users made five or more in-app purchases last year, compared to just 5 percent of users ages 55 and older.

In 2017, 21 percent of millennials said they dropped a mobile app because they didn't like the app logo.

According to ComScore, more than 20 percent of all millennial smartphone users say they have dropped apps because they don't like the way the logo looks on their screen. If the color and design of your mobile app logo do not meet user expectations, the chances of your app being deleted will increase.

Smartphone users spend 50 percent of their time on one app and 97 percent on their top 10 apps.

As time spent on mobile apps is increasing, the number of apps that smartphone users actually open and use the app is limited. In 2017, smartphone users spend about 50 percent of their app usage on a single app and virtually spend their app time in their top 10 apps.

More than 50 percent of all smartphone users move to the home screen for easy access to mobile apps.

In 2017, 80 percent of smartphone users said they intentionally moved mobile apps to their device's home screen. When asked why 61 percent said they were using the app too much, 54 percent said it was for easy access, and 49 percent said they needed to access the app more frequently and not swipe through pages and folders. On answers about easy access, 18 percent of consumers say they've moved an app to their home screen because of how the logo looks. It further highlights the importance of color theory in the mobile app icon design.

76 percent of Millennials said their phone is useless without mobile apps, and 74 percent said they would open the app when bored.

Millennials generally rely on the apps they download for their phones. 76 percent of Millennials say their smartphones are useless without mobile apps, and 74 percent say they get bored instantly. They open the app on their phone. Additionally, 63 percent of Millennials said they would click on new notifications right away.

The percentage of smartphone users who allow push notifications has increased by 16 percent since 2016.

To generate last-key insight, smartphone users are allowing mobile apps to send push notifications more frequently. From 2015 to 2016, the percentage of users who allowed frequent notifications fell from 33 percent to 27 percent, but that number increased by 16 percent in 2017 to half of all users.

Eight of the top 10 most used mobile apps in 2017 are owned by Facebook and Google.

When it comes to the most popular smartphone apps, Facebook and Google run the show. Of the top 10 most popular mobile apps, Facebook has three and Google five; the other two are Snapchat and Pandora. More than 80 percent of all mobile phone users have a Facebook app installed on their device.

Nearly 40 percent of smartphone users say that social media apps are being used more frequently.

According to The Manifest Research, 39 percent of smartphone users list social media apps as the most used, followed by communication apps and gaming apps at 10 percent. In other words, about 50 percent of smartphone owners use their mobile devices to connect with friends and family.

Almost 70 percent of Millennials say that social networking apps are the most used.

For Millennials, in particular, the number of people who list social media apps as the most-used category goes up to 69 percent, with messaging second at 55 percent — emphasizing the primary use of connecting and communicating with others.

Approximately 37 percent of Millennials list data usage as a key factor when deciding whether they like the mobile app.

When asked what the top three factors are when deciding whether they want to keep a mobile app, 37 percent of millennials say that high data usage is a dealbreaker. The perfect example of this is the Pokemon Go-app that went viral, but users were constantly frustrated with how much data it ate, and many deleted it. When you're building your own mobile app, users can quickly hit the delete button due to high data usage.