Mobile apps are one of the hottest markets in all of technology. Anyone needing evidence to support that claim need look no further than the latest report from mobile analytics firm Flurry. The Yahoo-owned company's data shows that overall app usage increased by 76 percent in 2014.
Previous years have been all about gaming and entertainment but last year belonged to business and communication as lifestyle & shopping, utilities & productivity and messaging / social categories all experienced triple-digit growth.
Lifestyle & shopping led the pack with a whopping 174 percent growth. Utilities & productivity app usage increased by a respectable 121 percent while messaging / social app usage shot up 103 percent.
The data reveals that consumers are more comfortable than ever with making transactions on mobile devices. What's more, the strong growth in the utilities & productivity app category illustrates the fact that smartphones and tablets are becoming an even more integral part of our daily work lives.
Interestingly enough, Flurry notes that every app store category realized growth in 2014. And while time spent in early mainstay categories continues to grow, they're slowly reaching a matured state.
The gaming category, for example, realized growth of 61 percent in 2013 - a figure that fell to just 30 percent last year. The same can be said for music, media and entertainment which fell from 79 percent growth in 2013 to just 33 percent in 2014.