Social Media Apps

Distimo was founded to solve the challenges created by a widely fragmented app store marketplace filled

with equally fragmented information and statistics.

Distimo was launched shortly after the introduction of the first app store. App stores have clearly shown

since that time that they are the way forward for content distribution. The app store model offers an

enormous opportunity for developers to get their content out and dramatically improves content discovery

by consumers. However, the mobile market has long been characterized by fragmentation, which is

also displayed in the wide range of mobile application stores that were launched from 2009 on.

Distimo is a privately held company based in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Learn more: www.distimo.com

Social Networking Apps

By Gert Jan Spriensma, Analyst at Distimo

Distimo 2012, some rights reserved

Apple App Store for iPhone

Distimo Publication - August 2012

Distimo 2012, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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 months publication examines

which mobile social networks are doing well and who is winning in the largest countries.

In this publication, applications that reside in the social or photography category in the

Apple App Store for iPhone and aim to build a network, are included.

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 U.S. surged by 43 percent, however, the volume

among the top 100 most popular social applications was 193% 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 Facebooks 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. Especially Instagram

gathered much more downloads in July 2012, but also applications like Twitter,

Skype and Whatsapp were more dominant.

NEW AND NOTEWORTHY



The smartphone developed from a calling device into a social hub, where texting, photo

sharing and location-based services, amongst others, are at the heart of the phone

instead of calling. These services are generally not offered by the manufacturers or

the operators, but by social networks that leverage the mobile internet connection of

the smartphone. The most known and established social networks like Facebook and

Twitter are even integrated into iOS and Windows Phone 7, however, according to many,

not all social networks get the mobile experience right. This publication will take a

quantitative look at all those social networks out there and will identify three main

types of social applications: 1) communication, 2) media and 3) location-based services

(LBS). Some social networks cover all three, like Twitter, while others have launched

single apps, like Facebook (Facebook Messaging / Photos). Moreover, many are only

focused on one activity like Whatsapp and Instagram, which are focused on messages

and photos, respectively.

The chart shows the growth in download volume over the past two years in both the top

100 most popular free applications, and the top 100 most popular social networking

applications. While the download volumes among the top 100 overall most popular

applications grew by 43 percent over the past two years, the download volume among

the top 100 most popular social networking applications is almost 200 percent higher.

THE SOCIAL ECOSYSTEM

Most applications we look at reside in the social networking category within the Apple

App Store. When we look at the growth of this category compared to the whole store a

higher growth could be observed. A higher growth for social applications is odd as the

number of social networks is limited, and hence, the average shelf life is high. On the

other hand there are many new games published every week and users can install many

games which they play for a while.



There are large differences in the appetite for social applications per country. The

volume among the top 100 most popular social applications compared to the volume in

the top 100 most popular applications in general varies between 7 and 20 percent. The

percentages are given in the chart per country. It appears that the United States is the

most social savvy, as the download volume in the social category is 20 percent of the of

the Top Overall, while the overall average is 13 percent. It seems that users in Europe

and South East Asia are the least social-minded on mobile, as this percentage does not

exceed 10 percent in most European and Asian countries.

Many applications compete within the three defined areas of communication, media

and location-based services. There are some that have existed for many years like

eBuddy and Facebook, while others launched only a few years ago and followed a

mobile first (and only) approach like Whatsapp and Instagram. It is impossible to take

into account all social networks, hence, in this publication only a subset is discussed.

These applications were among the most popular in the 20 countries in terms of app

downloads. Some were only popular in one or a few countries, like QQ, while others

were among the most popular in all countries included in this research. Please note that

we use downloads here because the number of users is probably the most important

metric to assess success for social networks. We consider three time-frames to identify

which social networks were most popular during that period: 1) July 2010 June 2011,

2) July 2011 June 2012 and 3) July 2012.



The most popular free social network on iPhone during the period between July 2010

and June 2011, aggregated over all countries, is Facebook. In only five of the researched

countries, Facebook was not the most popular. In three of those five countries Facebook

was still among the top 5 most popular, while Facebook was not popular in China and

South Korea. During the period from June 2010 June 2011, the top 10 aggregated was;

JULY 2010 - JUNE 2011 - FACEBOOK DOMINANCE

Meanwhile for paid applications Whatsapp Messenger was the number one paid

application in all countries, except for Japan where it was the number two most popular

application. Moreover, it was listed among nearly all countries as the top grossing social

application.

JULY 2011 - JUNE 2012 - IN ASIA OTHERS BECOME MORE POPULAR

In the second period, between July 2011 and June 2012, Facebook remained the most

popular social network overall, however, its dominance is not as apparent as between

July 2010 and June 2011. In many mainly Asian countries others have taken the lead but

also in some western countries, e.g., Spain and Australia, Facebook was not the most

popular social network in terms of downloads anymore. Please note that downloads do

not equal active users and as the Facebook app has been around for over three years

now, the adoption is already high.



We clearly see some networks losing, Windows Live Messenger, for example, which was

among the top three in the previous period and between July 2011 and June 2012 can

be found at rank 10. Facebook Messenger, LINE, Google+ and WeChat are new in the top

10. Instagram is also new in the top 10 and has been acquired by Facebook. The second

spot might indicate why; it became very popular within one year and could potentially

harm Facebooks dominant position.

Again for paid applications Whatsapp was without exception, the most popular

application across the countries that are covered in this report. However, as paid

applications have on average between 14x and 40x less downloads, it is not as large as

Facebook. Whatsapp goes on sale once in a while and based on these few sale days, it

still reached the top 25 of free applications in many countries. It likely would have been

one of the most popular social applications in the world if Whatsapp would issue a free

version. The true reach of Whatsapp will be discussed in the next section.

LINE was the most popular application in Japan, Taiwan and Singapore, while Viber was

the most popular in Spain and Australia. In China and Hong Kong, WeChat was the most

downloaded application and KakaoTalk was the most popular in South Korea, just like

in the previous period. The aggregated top 10 in this period was:



This graph clearly shows that Instagram, while it was the second most popular

application between July 2011 - June 2012, is way more popular in terms of downloads

than Facebook in many countries in July 2012. The only countries where we do not see

any signs of the popularity of Instagram are China, Japan and Korea. Also Skype and

Whatsapp, that have been available for over three years now, are doing better than

Facebook across countries. Please note that Whatsapp is a paid for application however

it has been on sale in July which explains the high number of downloads.

The past two years showed a moderate trend towards other social networks that focus

on one particular task, becoming more popular next to Facebook or even surpassing

Facebook in terms of downloads. However, the analysis did not show any differences

in download figures between apps, i.e., there was no measure how popular those apps

were. Therefore, in July of this year, we performed a similar analysis with the actual

download figures. In the chart below you will find the relative number of downloads

in ten major countries benchmarked with Facebook. Facebook is used as an index

and all social network applications discussed in this publications that generated more

downloads in July 2012 are plotted in the graph.

JULY 2012 - INSTAGRAM TIME



In this publication we showed the state of the social network landscape on mobile

(iPhone) in the two years prior to July 2012. It is clear that other social networks besides

Facebook have become more popular in terms of downloads in mainly Asian countries.

One should be careful to draw conclusions as downloads do not equals active installs or

active users. The Facebook app has been around for over three years now and gathered

a lot of mobile users. However, while it remains the most popular application in the

most mature market, the U.S., it has lost prominence in others, i.e., the mobile app

preference in those countries must be at least different.

In July 2012 Instagram became the most popular (number of downloads in one month)

iPhone application in most of the ten largest countries, while also Twitter, that has been

around for three years as well, gathered more downloads in one month. In the largest

market, the United States, Skype and Pinterest also gathered more downloads in the

Apple App Store for iPhone in July 2012.

RECAP

LINE is doing only slightly better than Facebook in Japan and Korea so Facebook seems

to catch up in those countries. Kakao Story, the photo app of Kakao, is clearly the most

popular in Korea. In China the popularity of Facebook is low, networks like QQ and

Wechat had about 5 to 6 times more iPhone downloads than Facebook in July 2012.

Aggregated over these 10 countries the clear winner in terms of downloads in July 2012

was Instagram, followed by Twitter and Facebook. The top 10 can be found at the end

of this publication. Please note that the United States is by far the largest market, hence

the top list is highly biased towards the United States. This explains the appearance of

Pinterest, Pinger and KIK messenger in the top 10.



DISTIMOS PAID FEATURED REPORTS: GAIN DEEP INSIGHTS INTO ALL MAJOR APPLICATION STORES. STARTING AT 399The reports are available for July 2012 and an annual 2011 report is available for

North America, Europe and Asia. In addition to the the major trends in the app stores:

The July 2012 report covers month over month pricing trends and provides more insights into the daily download volumes in the major app stores including Google

Play. Moreover, it shows the most popular applications per region.

The annual 2011 report covers all major trends, in growth and in pricing among others, in the app stores covering the period January 2011 - November 2011.



MOST POPULAR APPLICATIONS BY DOWNLOADSAPPLE APP STORE FOR IPHONE - AGGREGATED OVER 10 COUNTRIES* - JULY 2012

Rank Application Category Price

1 Instagram Photography free

2 Twitter Social Networking free

3 Facebook Social Networking free

4 Skype Social Networking free

5 Pinterest Social Networking free

6Textfree is now Pinger: Text Free + Call Free + Worldwide Messenger

Social Networking free

7 WhatsApp Messenger Social Networking paid

8 Kik Messenger Social Networking free

9 Viber - Free Phone Calls & Text Social Networking free

10 Tango Video Calls Social Networking free

* Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Korea, United Kingdom, United

States



DISTIMO CUSTOM REPORTS

CONTACT US

ABOUT DISTIMO

Aside from this free monthly publication, Distimo produces custom reports capable

of providing specific mobile application store analytics that are relevant to your

company. Custom reports are currently available for any country worldwide for the

Amazon Appstore, Apple App Store for iPhone, Apple App Store for iPad, Apple Mac

App Store, BlackBerry App World, GetJar, Google Android Market, Nokia Ovi Store,

Palm App Catalog, Windows Phone 7 Marketplace. Additional application stores will be

available in the coming months. To get a better idea of the type of data and metrics

that Distimo can provide, please visit our Report product page.

For sales inquiries, please contact Remco van den Elzen, VP Business Development at

[email protected] or call +31 30 82 00 567. For press inquiries please contact

Mindy M. Hull at [email protected] or call +31 62 504 7680 (EU) or

+1 415 889 9977 (USA).

Distimo is the innovative app store analytics company built to solve the challenges

created by a widely fragmented app store marketplace filled with equally fragmented

information and statistics.

Distimo Report provides in-depth customized reports for carriers and operators and

offers valuable insight into important trends happening within different application

stores around the world. Custom reports are currently available for the Apple App Store

for iPhone, Apple App Store for iPad, Apple Mac App Store, Amazon Appstore, BlackBerry

App World, GetJar, Google Android Market, Nokia Ovi Store, Palm App Catalog, and

Windows Phone 7 Marketplace.

Distimo Monitor is a free, cross-platform, app monitoring tool for developers that

enables them to monitor their own and competitive applications across all app stores,

without any adjustments needed to their applications code. AppLink is a first-of-its-

kind, easy-to-use, cross-platform app distribution service within Distimo Monitor that

provides developers with detailed insight into their app distribution analytics and their

app sales funnel.

Founded in 2009, Distimo is a privately held company based in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Follow us on Twitter, read our blog or learn more at http://www.distimo.com.

Disclaimer

This work is licensed under Creative Commons License Attribution Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0

Netherlands. This license is available for download at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/nl/.

This license ables you to use, copy, spread, and build upon this work non-commercially, as long as you credit

Distimo and license your new creations under the identical terms.

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Social Media Apps