12 ms·

Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

231 points by AnbeSivam 11y ago

vbezhenar 11y ago
I believe that mobile browser will beat apps, like it did on desktop. Mobile browsers were unusable, sites were not mobile-friendly, devices were slow with tiny screens. Now those factors change and browsing websites on modern smartphone is much more usable. And it's likely that we will see shift from mobile apps to mobile websites in the near future.
- danmaz74 11y ago
  As a developer and consumer, I think that browsers are better for most use cases, where user interaction is simple enough and web technologies are more than up to the task. But this technical consideration could be trumped by business considerations: making people pay for "mere websites" is more difficult than making them pay for apps, and if ad blocking really becomes mainstream, this could be enough reason for producers of even simple content to prefer apps - where they can have their free version with ads without having to worry about blockers.
  - michaelpinto 11y ago
    You know I wonder if in the long term if blocking ads may improve the open web experience vs. native apps which may become cluttered with ads?
    - danmaz74 11y ago
      That... or maybe it could remove all professional content from the open web, and make it some kind of ghetto for those who can't pay for apps. I honestly don't know.
      - michaelpinto 11y ago
        You just described most of what I see on 4chan and Facebook. But in a sense what you're saying has happened to a degree with paywalls. The really good content at say the New York Times, Financial Times and the like is behind paywalls at this point while low quality stuff like Huffington Post is free.
        danmaz74 11y ago
        > The really good content at say the New York Times, Financial Times and the like is behind paywalls For now, it's "soft" paywalls - they're still indexable by Google, and visible if you come from there. I'm afraid that, in the near future, they could really become accessible only to those who can pay. And the quality of the free internet would instantly drop many notches.
        michaelpinto 11y ago
        That's my fear as well, although I've seen a decline in the market over the past few years. After the banner ad crash of '08 it became harder for indie bloggers to make a living. And another problem I see these days is that not only are banner ads paying badly, but money has flooded into the field to back winner-takes-all ventures like Vox or Buzzfeed. So it's hard for the little guy to even get pizza money at this point.
        danmaz74 11y ago
        Well, we can only hope for the better...
    - tluyben2 11y ago
      At least for most usable apps with ads there is the in-app option to switch them off. I don't mind that for an app that is good ; on the other hand, I would've paid for that app as well in the first place.
- bottled_poe 11y ago
  >like it did on desktop It's pretty great that this happened. I'm so sick of using these pesky desktop applications. Just remind me, which web apps can I use for the following? -Audio production -3D animation -Video editing -CAD design -Writing/debugging software
  - dbrabera 11y ago
    Those are all very specialised types of apps for content creation. If those are the only examples that came to your mind, you pretty much proved the point.
    - bottled_poe 11y ago
      So, you really believe that nobody, other than the use cases above, use native software? I only listed the software categories which I personally use...
      - IIAOPSW 11y ago
        No. He proved that only a specialized minority need specialized applications. For a majority of users the computer starts and ends with the web browser. The same thing will happen on mobile
      - Drakim 11y ago
        I think he is exaggerating, but he does have a point. How many uses native applications for reading email today? More and more are also moving to the web for office applications. Some areas are completely swallowed. In the 90s it wouldn't have been strange to have a native application for the weather, or to browse a digital encyclopedia. Those areas are now only on the web.
        anon1385 11y ago
        >How many uses native applications for reading email today? Most people with a phone?
- pjmlp 11y ago
  I am not helping it, even though I sometimes work as web dev. On my devices, including desktop, web is for reading and watching movies. If there is an application for what I am trying to do, it will be used instead.
- neuronic 11y ago
  You have a point. The mobile-browsing experience on my 3.5 year old Galaxy Nexus is horrible. This is completely different on an iPhone 6, Galaxy S6, Nexus 6...
- tdkl 11y ago
  > I believe that mobile browser will beat apps, like it did on desktop. So now I have to "upgrade" my browser (which is basically almost a VM) that uses 1GB of RAM to run that To-do app over a series of tubes which are metered and analysed. We've really done some progress here yeah.
  - eru 11y ago
    That's what happened on the Desktop..
  - collyw 11y ago
    On Firefox OS and to a large extent on the Ubuntu phone, most apps are web based apps.
    - pjc50 11y ago
      Both of which have really tiny userbases and aren't desktop.
      - collyw 11y ago
        The point was that plen of apps already run like that. Doesn't really require a broswer upgrade. The Ubuntu phone is not especially highly specced.
- tluyben2 11y ago
  I try to find an app for things I regularly (daily) use. Some things have excellent apps which far surpass the web experience for me (like Reddit, Linkedin, Inbox, Skype) while others are crap (all HN apps I tried, including the paid ones, Hipchat (what a piece of...), almost all airline apps). But when the experience of the app surpasses the web, it does so by such a stretch that when I start the web version on my desktop I close it again and take out my iPad. For me a company definitely only takes it's customers serious if they have smooth native apps as well as a smooth responsive web experience.
  - ryannevius 11y ago
    Not sure if you have an Android device...but have you tried the Yarn app (Hacker News)? It's the only HN app that is usable for me. _This comment sent using Yarn for HN_
    - tluyben2 11y ago
      I have both Android & iOS; I just don't use Android too much but thank you for the recommendation, I will install it.
- cft 11y ago
  Desktop apps for an average user were always a wild west with potential viruses: there was never a curated app store with reviews, which I believe is an advantage for an average user. Additionally a large class of top phone apps is messaging, which has always been apps even on desktop: Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat, Skype etc. Also, why would I use maps.google.com on my phone instead of one click Google Maps app? Seems like torture to me.
1971genocide 11y ago
I find is to so much easier to just type out the URL of what app I need - facebook, reddit, youtube, etc - Its just faster to let google auto-complete then having to browse my own phone for the app that I need. typing the letter "f" is faster than exiting the browser and using my OWN EYES to browse left to right row by row the apps on my phone. How cave-manish.
- gkoberger 11y ago
  On the iPhone, it's easy to search for an app with a quick swipe down. As for cavemanish, some might argue "clicking a large icon" is less cavemanish than having to resort to something as unnatural as a keyboard.
  - 1971genocide 11y ago
    The iPhone keyboard famously are not very good. So are older phones. The newer android phone have amazing responsive. I sometimes use my phone to actually write presentation speech. Something I though I would never do with my older android phones.
  - rimantas 11y ago
    And in iOS 9 you get Siri suggestions, so most likely you won't even need to type anything.
no_gravity 11y ago
The difference between web and app is trust. A website has write access to my screen, my speakers and my internet connection. Plus limited read access. To keyboard, mouse, device orientation etc. Other rights can be granted (location, cookies etc). It can do all this only as long as it's "open". An app usually has read/write access to large parts of my device. The whole sd-card, raw internet access, the camera, the microphone, ask me for money etc. And it can keep doing so even when it's "closed". We will see the two converge. Websites will have more rights they can ask for. Apps will be better to tame. But trust will keep being the differentiator and they will keep co-existing. There is friendship and there is marriage. Both have their use case.
- EduardoBautista 11y ago
  You can pretty much deny access to the information you don't want the app to access though.
  - wlesieutre 11y ago
    Not on Android, at least until 6.0 has a noticeable install base (years)
- tdkl 11y ago
  > An app usually has read/write access to large parts of my device. The whole sd-card, raw internet access, the camera, the microphone, ask me for money etc. On Android.
  - aviraldg 11y ago
    Not anymore.
    - dombili 11y ago
      I wouldn't so firmly say "not anymore" when only 15% of Android users[1] are on the latest version of Android almost a year after its release. That number probably won't go any higher over time either because Android's update cycle is a mess. [1] https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html
unKlever 11y ago
For years it has been obvious that the web would beat apps in aggregate, but apps would have better engagement. If you wrap your website in an app using ionic and treat it like a standard site no one will use it. While soneon has noted trust (which is true) it is also fir convenience. The browser is a great app and can run many apps in parralel while quickly shifting between them, it is CONVENIENCE as mych as trust. If your app does mot extensively make use of the hardware and can be run as a website, it has no business being an app. This is obvious, being proved now, and the app craze will pivot from shit-tier websites in iOS clothing to things that add real value and interface directly with the phones hardware because they need to provide security, access to a protocol, or leverage hatdware (accelerometer, camera, Bluetooth, etc)
DavideNL 11y ago
Doesn't browser traffic also contain more ads and tracking stuff...? (which also contributes to 'more data')
- out_of_protocol 11y ago
  Nope - that traffic is not "bytes" but "Unique visitors". Misleading label, yes
kombine 11y ago
Isn't it because the browser loads user interface and code all the time (sure, there's caching, but still), while apps only load data?
- asadotzler 11y ago
  Apps never download 100MB updates every few weeks either, right?
- err4nt 11y ago
  You can create VERY lightweight offline-cacheable offline apps, try adding this to your home screen: App: http://staticresource.com/quotes.html http://staticresource.com/quotes.html
- ndesaulniers 11y ago
  This year, browsers are implementing the Service Worker spec [0] which is a major improvement to the previous App Cache spec [1]. Both could be used to load UI (and all other static assets) when offline. There are also numerous headers for describing TTL for downloaded assets, and APIs for offline storage (localStorage, indexedDB). I think the main differences are that while the web has these capabilities, you don't get them for free. You do have to go out of your way to use them. Usually, they're developed assuming an Internet connection, then made to work offline. Usually, it's the other way around for native apps. [0] http://www.w3.org/TR/service-workers/ http://www.w3.org/TR/service-workers/ [1] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/browsers.html#appcache http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/browsers.html#a...
merb 11y ago
Fastest growing, yeah... https://xkcd.com/1102/ https://xkcd.com/1102/ And also Traffic says nothing about usage. I mean a Browser needs to download more things than any App will do, thats why Apps are used so heavily. the only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself
- vdaniuk 11y ago
  >the only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself Aren't you overreacting a bit? This premise is easily proven wrong by anyone driving growth in most startups.
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  I've only read the headline, but it claims mobile traffic (whatever that means) is both larger and faster growing, which renders the xkcd strip irrelevant since the two religions are competing on only one of those.
gozo 11y ago
Uhm. I would say it's more notable that 1/3 of mobile traffic is seemingly under the control of a few companies. If you were ever concerned about the openess of the Internet, this is it.
mnem 11y ago
What the report is based on: a median value selected from the traffic to 42 of the top US websites (it ignores those which don't have both and app and a website) from data provided by Comscore. The term "traffic" is never defined. Web requests? Quantity of data transferred? Both of those would have significantly shapes depending on whether the client was a browser or an app. It's also interesting to note that the top 10 "Browser Reach Advantage" websites are basically text based websites - news sites, wikipedia and blogs. Things I learned from the report: the top website (with 207.0x Browser Reach Advantage) Blogger has an app.
- idibidiart 11y ago
  Only comment here that gets my like.
- Encosia 11y ago
  The y-axis is labeled "Unique Visitors".
hewhowhineth 11y ago
Web for the win!
coob 11y ago
Apps use less data than mobile web sites - API's over full HTML/CSS/JS stacks. When a web page on a modern news site can be ~20MB, this news is no surprise.
- partiallypro 11y ago
  I don't know what news site you're visiting...in any case, this is about unique visits, not bandwidth consumption.
ck2 11y ago
and bot traffic is 80% of your entire site traffic
- natch 11y ago
  and 80% of unique visitors too (not sarcasm).
lamby 11y ago
> The difference between web and app is trust. Hm, do you really think this is a mainstream concern that is driving this?
tomp 11y ago
> The problem is terminology and the exact focus of each study. Morgan Stanley’s study [browser > app] is focused on unique visitors — calling it, somewhat misleadingly, “traffic” — while comScore’s report [app > browser] is focused on actual user time spent. Explains the surprising result.
sidcool 11y ago
Flipkart needs to take a heed.
rasputhin 11y ago
Only 2x? I thought it would be much higher
kukabynd 11y ago
Most popular used apps/platforms nowadays are not related to hardware (Facebook, Twitter, Medium). Chances are, your product isn’t too. The only thing annoying me in mobile browser experience is the UI. For example, Safari on iOS. Let’s hide URL bar and get rid of back/forwards buttons in favour of using gestures 100%. Then, most of websites will be perceived as apps for majority of users anyway. By moving to native we officially obey corporations to control our products and it’s surely not the way to go.
PaulHoule 11y ago
One of my pet peeves are the sites like LinkedIn and scribd that push you hard to install a c-rap. If at all possible I prefer to browse desktop sites on my tablet father than mobile sites that assume I have sold my firstborn son to Verizon in exchange for the right to breath through a straw in places where Verizon feels like providing service.
natch 11y ago
Probably a lot of this is Android users, who can't trust apps.
pbreit 11y ago
These reports never clarify how they count browser use embedded in apps, notably Facebook and Twitter.
Animats 11y ago
No, it's not "growing faster". Numbers from the article: 2013: 1.8x 2014: 1.7x 2015: 2.1x Get two up years in a row, and maybe there's a trend. You could get that much increase from increased bloat on a few key sites' home pages.
chetanahuja 11y ago
It's a ridiculous to call the metric measured by this study "Traffic". All it's counting is "unique user's as counted" on all the websites. So while I'm scrolling through twitter app on my phone, I might click on about 20-30 random links (most of which open in the browser), take a quick look and swipe away the tab. According to this study, I just presented myself as "Unique User" on 20-30 sites. All the while, I'm simply browsing twitter. So according the methodology of this study, I just generated 30x the "web traffic" as compared to my app traffic. It's a patently ridiculous way of measuring mobile usage.
will_critchlow 11y ago
I'm pretty suspicious of the data and the analysis in this study - even though I "like" some of the conclusions. I wrote a post about it here: https://www.distilled.net/resources/5-things-that-make-me-suspicious-of-morgan-stanleys-report-on-apps-vs-mobile-web/ https://www.distilled.net/resources/5-things-that-make-me-su... Hope someone finds it useful.

231 points by AnbeSivam 11y ago

I believe that mobile browser will beat apps, like it did on desktop. Mobile browsers were unusable, sites were not mobile-friendly, devices were slow with tiny screens. Now those factors change and browsing websites on modern smartphone is much more usable. And it's likely that we will see shift from mobile apps to mobile websites in the near future.

danmaz74 11y ago
As a developer and consumer, I think that browsers are better for most use cases, where user interaction is simple enough and web technologies are more than up to the task. But this technical consideration could be trumped by business considerations: making people pay for "mere websites" is more difficult than making them pay for apps, and if ad blocking really becomes mainstream, this could be enough reason for producers of even simple content to prefer apps - where they can have their free version with ads without having to worry about blockers.
- michaelpinto 11y ago
  You know I wonder if in the long term if blocking ads may improve the open web experience vs. native apps which may become cluttered with ads?
  - danmaz74 11y ago
    That... or maybe it could remove all professional content from the open web, and make it some kind of ghetto for those who can't pay for apps. I honestly don't know.
    - michaelpinto 11y ago
      You just described most of what I see on 4chan and Facebook. But in a sense what you're saying has happened to a degree with paywalls. The really good content at say the New York Times, Financial Times and the like is behind paywalls at this point while low quality stuff like Huffington Post is free.
      - danmaz74 11y ago
        > The really good content at say the New York Times, Financial Times and the like is behind paywalls For now, it's "soft" paywalls - they're still indexable by Google, and visible if you come from there. I'm afraid that, in the near future, they could really become accessible only to those who can pay. And the quality of the free internet would instantly drop many notches.
        michaelpinto 11y ago
        That's my fear as well, although I've seen a decline in the market over the past few years. After the banner ad crash of '08 it became harder for indie bloggers to make a living. And another problem I see these days is that not only are banner ads paying badly, but money has flooded into the field to back winner-takes-all ventures like Vox or Buzzfeed. So it's hard for the little guy to even get pizza money at this point.
        danmaz74 11y ago
        Well, we can only hope for the better...
  - tluyben2 11y ago
    At least for most usable apps with ads there is the in-app option to switch them off. I don't mind that for an app that is good ; on the other hand, I would've paid for that app as well in the first place.
bottled_poe 11y ago
>like it did on desktop It's pretty great that this happened. I'm so sick of using these pesky desktop applications. Just remind me, which web apps can I use for the following? -Audio production -3D animation -Video editing -CAD design -Writing/debugging software
- dbrabera 11y ago
  Those are all very specialised types of apps for content creation. If those are the only examples that came to your mind, you pretty much proved the point.
  - bottled_poe 11y ago
    So, you really believe that nobody, other than the use cases above, use native software? I only listed the software categories which I personally use...
    - IIAOPSW 11y ago
      No. He proved that only a specialized minority need specialized applications. For a majority of users the computer starts and ends with the web browser. The same thing will happen on mobile
    - Drakim 11y ago
      I think he is exaggerating, but he does have a point. How many uses native applications for reading email today? More and more are also moving to the web for office applications. Some areas are completely swallowed. In the 90s it wouldn't have been strange to have a native application for the weather, or to browse a digital encyclopedia. Those areas are now only on the web.
      - anon1385 11y ago
        >How many uses native applications for reading email today? Most people with a phone?
pjmlp 11y ago
I am not helping it, even though I sometimes work as web dev. On my devices, including desktop, web is for reading and watching movies. If there is an application for what I am trying to do, it will be used instead.
neuronic 11y ago
You have a point. The mobile-browsing experience on my 3.5 year old Galaxy Nexus is horrible. This is completely different on an iPhone 6, Galaxy S6, Nexus 6...
tdkl 11y ago
> I believe that mobile browser will beat apps, like it did on desktop. So now I have to "upgrade" my browser (which is basically almost a VM) that uses 1GB of RAM to run that To-do app over a series of tubes which are metered and analysed. We've really done some progress here yeah.
- eru 11y ago
  That's what happened on the Desktop..
- collyw 11y ago
  On Firefox OS and to a large extent on the Ubuntu phone, most apps are web based apps.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    Both of which have really tiny userbases and aren't desktop.
    - collyw 11y ago
      The point was that plen of apps already run like that. Doesn't really require a broswer upgrade. The Ubuntu phone is not especially highly specced.
tluyben2 11y ago
I try to find an app for things I regularly (daily) use. Some things have excellent apps which far surpass the web experience for me (like Reddit, Linkedin, Inbox, Skype) while others are crap (all HN apps I tried, including the paid ones, Hipchat (what a piece of...), almost all airline apps). But when the experience of the app surpasses the web, it does so by such a stretch that when I start the web version on my desktop I close it again and take out my iPad. For me a company definitely only takes it's customers serious if they have smooth native apps as well as a smooth responsive web experience.
- ryannevius 11y ago
  Not sure if you have an Android device...but have you tried the Yarn app (Hacker News)? It's the only HN app that is usable for me. _This comment sent using Yarn for HN_
  - tluyben2 11y ago
    I have both Android & iOS; I just don't use Android too much but thank you for the recommendation, I will install it.
cft 11y ago
Desktop apps for an average user were always a wild west with potential viruses: there was never a curated app store with reviews, which I believe is an advantage for an average user. Additionally a large class of top phone apps is messaging, which has always been apps even on desktop: Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat, Skype etc. Also, why would I use maps.google.com on my phone instead of one click Google Maps app? Seems like torture to me.

1971genocide 11y ago

I find is to so much easier to just type out the URL of what app I need - facebook, reddit, youtube, etc - Its just faster to let google auto-complete then having to browse my own phone for the app that I need. typing the letter "f" is faster than exiting the browser and using my OWN EYES to browse left to right row by row the apps on my phone. How cave-manish.

gkoberger 11y ago
On the iPhone, it's easy to search for an app with a quick swipe down. As for cavemanish, some might argue "clicking a large icon" is less cavemanish than having to resort to something as unnatural as a keyboard.
- 1971genocide 11y ago
  The iPhone keyboard famously are not very good. So are older phones. The newer android phone have amazing responsive. I sometimes use my phone to actually write presentation speech. Something I though I would never do with my older android phones.
- rimantas 11y ago
  And in iOS 9 you get Siri suggestions, so most likely you won't even need to type anything.

no_gravity 11y ago

The difference between web and app is trust. A website has write access to my screen, my speakers and my internet connection. Plus limited read access. To keyboard, mouse, device orientation etc. Other rights can be granted (location, cookies etc). It can do all this only as long as it's "open". An app usually has read/write access to large parts of my device. The whole sd-card, raw internet access, the camera, the microphone, ask me for money etc. And it can keep doing so even when it's "closed". We will see the two converge. Websites will have more rights they can ask for. Apps will be better to tame. But trust will keep being the differentiator and they will keep co-existing. There is friendship and there is marriage. Both have their use case.

EduardoBautista 11y ago
You can pretty much deny access to the information you don't want the app to access though.
- wlesieutre 11y ago
  Not on Android, at least until 6.0 has a noticeable install base (years)
tdkl 11y ago
> An app usually has read/write access to large parts of my device. The whole sd-card, raw internet access, the camera, the microphone, ask me for money etc. On Android.
- aviraldg 11y ago
  Not anymore.
  - dombili 11y ago
    I wouldn't so firmly say "not anymore" when only 15% of Android users[1] are on the latest version of Android almost a year after its release. That number probably won't go any higher over time either because Android's update cycle is a mess. [1] https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

unKlever 11y ago

For years it has been obvious that the web would beat apps in aggregate, but apps would have better engagement. If you wrap your website in an app using ionic and treat it like a standard site no one will use it. While soneon has noted trust (which is true) it is also fir convenience. The browser is a great app and can run many apps in parralel while quickly shifting between them, it is CONVENIENCE as mych as trust. If your app does mot extensively make use of the hardware and can be run as a website, it has no business being an app. This is obvious, being proved now, and the app craze will pivot from shit-tier websites in iOS clothing to things that add real value and interface directly with the phones hardware because they need to provide security, access to a protocol, or leverage hatdware (accelerometer, camera, Bluetooth, etc)

DavideNL 11y ago

Doesn't browser traffic also contain more ads and tracking stuff...? (which also contributes to 'more data')

out_of_protocol 11y ago
Nope - that traffic is not "bytes" but "Unique visitors". Misleading label, yes

kombine 11y ago

Isn't it because the browser loads user interface and code all the time (sure, there's caching, but still), while apps only load data?

asadotzler 11y ago
Apps never download 100MB updates every few weeks either, right?
err4nt 11y ago
You can create VERY lightweight offline-cacheable offline apps, try adding this to your home screen: App: http://staticresource.com/quotes.html http://staticresource.com/quotes.html
ndesaulniers 11y ago
This year, browsers are implementing the Service Worker spec [0] which is a major improvement to the previous App Cache spec [1]. Both could be used to load UI (and all other static assets) when offline. There are also numerous headers for describing TTL for downloaded assets, and APIs for offline storage (localStorage, indexedDB). I think the main differences are that while the web has these capabilities, you don't get them for free. You do have to go out of your way to use them. Usually, they're developed assuming an Internet connection, then made to work offline. Usually, it's the other way around for native apps. [0] http://www.w3.org/TR/service-workers/ http://www.w3.org/TR/service-workers/ [1] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/browsers.html#appcache http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/browsers.html#a...

merb 11y ago

Fastest growing, yeah... https://xkcd.com/1102/ https://xkcd.com/1102/ And also Traffic says nothing about usage. I mean a Browser needs to download more things than any App will do, thats why Apps are used so heavily. the only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself

vdaniuk 11y ago
>the only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself Aren't you overreacting a bit? This premise is easily proven wrong by anyone driving growth in most startups.
ZeroGravitas 11y ago
I've only read the headline, but it claims mobile traffic (whatever that means) is both larger and faster growing, which renders the xkcd strip irrelevant since the two religions are competing on only one of those.

gozo 11y ago

Uhm. I would say it's more notable that 1/3 of mobile traffic is seemingly under the control of a few companies. If you were ever concerned about the openess of the Internet, this is it.

mnem 11y ago

What the report is based on: a median value selected from the traffic to 42 of the top US websites (it ignores those which don't have both and app and a website) from data provided by Comscore. The term "traffic" is never defined. Web requests? Quantity of data transferred? Both of those would have significantly shapes depending on whether the client was a browser or an app. It's also interesting to note that the top 10 "Browser Reach Advantage" websites are basically text based websites - news sites, wikipedia and blogs. Things I learned from the report: the top website (with 207.0x Browser Reach Advantage) Blogger has an app.

idibidiart 11y ago
Only comment here that gets my like.
Encosia 11y ago
The y-axis is labeled "Unique Visitors".

hewhowhineth 11y ago

Web for the win!

coob 11y ago

Apps use less data than mobile web sites - API's over full HTML/CSS/JS stacks. When a web page on a modern news site can be ~20MB, this news is no surprise.

partiallypro 11y ago
I don't know what news site you're visiting...in any case, this is about unique visits, not bandwidth consumption.

ck2 11y ago

and bot traffic is 80% of your entire site traffic

natch 11y ago
and 80% of unique visitors too (not sarcasm).

lamby 11y ago

> The difference between web and app is trust. Hm, do you really think this is a mainstream concern that is driving this?

tomp 11y ago

> The problem is terminology and the exact focus of each study. Morgan Stanley’s study [browser > app] is focused on unique visitors — calling it, somewhat misleadingly, “traffic” — while comScore’s report [app > browser] is focused on actual user time spent. Explains the surprising result.

sidcool 11y ago

Flipkart needs to take a heed.

rasputhin 11y ago

Only 2x? I thought it would be much higher

kukabynd 11y ago

Most popular used apps/platforms nowadays are not related to hardware (Facebook, Twitter, Medium). Chances are, your product isn’t too. The only thing annoying me in mobile browser experience is the UI. For example, Safari on iOS. Let’s hide URL bar and get rid of back/forwards buttons in favour of using gestures 100%. Then, most of websites will be perceived as apps for majority of users anyway. By moving to native we officially obey corporations to control our products and it’s surely not the way to go.

PaulHoule 11y ago

One of my pet peeves are the sites like LinkedIn and scribd that push you hard to install a c-rap. If at all possible I prefer to browse desktop sites on my tablet father than mobile sites that assume I have sold my firstborn son to Verizon in exchange for the right to breath through a straw in places where Verizon feels like providing service.

natch 11y ago

Probably a lot of this is Android users, who can't trust apps.

pbreit 11y ago

These reports never clarify how they count browser use embedded in apps, notably Facebook and Twitter.

Animats 11y ago

No, it's not "growing faster". Numbers from the article: 2013: 1.8x 2014: 1.7x 2015: 2.1x Get two up years in a row, and maybe there's a trend. You could get that much increase from increased bloat on a few key sites' home pages.

chetanahuja 11y ago

It's a ridiculous to call the metric measured by this study "Traffic". All it's counting is "unique user's as counted" on all the websites. So while I'm scrolling through twitter app on my phone, I might click on about 20-30 random links (most of which open in the browser), take a quick look and swipe away the tab. According to this study, I just presented myself as "Unique User" on 20-30 sites. All the while, I'm simply browsing twitter. So according the methodology of this study, I just generated 30x the "web traffic" as compared to my app traffic. It's a patently ridiculous way of measuring mobile usage.

will_critchlow 11y ago

I'm pretty suspicious of the data and the analysis in this study - even though I "like" some of the conclusions. I wrote a post about it here: https://www.distilled.net/resources/5-things-that-make-me-suspicious-of-morgan-stanleys-report-on-apps-vs-mobile-web/ https://www.distilled.net/resources/5-things-that-make-me-su... Hope someone finds it useful.