According to a study by Flurry Analytics, the audience of iOS games can already be compared with the audience of prime-time television.
19 million people spend an average of 22 minutes a day on iOS games or on social networks using iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch every day. The total number of users exceeds the audience of broadcasts of American football on Sunday evening or another top show. For comparison, the releases of the American version of the “Factory of Stars” American Idol are watched by only 4 million people.
It can be assumed that the figures published by Flurry Analytics are even underestimated. The company said that its counter is present only on 20% of the 300 thousand applications available in the Apple App Store. The company also notes that it is more interested in gaming and social networking applications. This means that the actual number of iOS app users is much larger.
Of course, it is quite difficult to compare the audiences of television and iOS applications, they are so different. It is also worth noting that so far the audience of any game could not even come close to the audience coverage of rated television shows. Flurry talks about the total audience of applications.
However, the research is very important for advertisers. The study emphasizes that the audience coverage of applications does not depend on the day of the week and is approximately the same 365 days a year. Despite the fact that a high-quality television show is shown only 22 times a year. As a result, advertisers can access the audience 15 times more often.
Advertisers are increasingly looking towards mobile advertising. According to IDC, the mobile advertising market will reach $500 million this year. In 2009, this figure was estimated at only $250 million.
To get the full picture, Flurry’s data on the audience coverage of iOS applications was combined with a graph by Michael Zimbalist (vice president of the research department at the New York Times). The result is a graph of the comparative hourly coverage of television, Internet and iOS applications.
Although television still exceeds the total coverage of applications in prime time, the activity of players gradually increases until 9 pm and even “overtakes” the number of Internet users in prime time. It is also worth noting that mobile users open their applications either in parallel, or instead of television and the Internet in prime time. In fact, the average hourly audience of mobile applications exceeds the audience of the Internet.