APUS Global Report Findings 2015

With a full year worth of data drawn from millions of mobile phone users around the world, APUS is sharing insights gained from when, where and how people use the APUS family of Android apps, and what this tells us about trends in device ownership and app usage.

APUS’ Global Mobile Market Insight for 2015 is based on anonymized data from 500,000 of its 920 million users, augmented with data from Google Play Store.

APUS can now reveal that the Android brand with the worst usability is Samsung.

The report reveals that 53% of APUS users that own a Samsung device have replaced the TouchWiz UI with APUS Launcher. Compared to other smartphone makes, proportionally more users of Samsung devices installed the APUS User System - suggesting that consumers find TouchWiz the least user-friendly interface.

Another device with a significant number of users installing APUS Launcher is the Nokia XL. On sale for just five months, Nokia XL ranks 8th of the 10 most common devices with APUS installed - suggesting that the Nokia X launcher, which mimics Windows Phone, is pretty unpopular with users.

The report used data from users in the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa, plus APUS’ biggest single market - India.

With a 250% growth in users from 100 million in January 2015 to 250 million by the end of the year, APUS has quickly become one of the most popular Android User Systems in the world.

Another insight from the report is the rapid growth in mobile data use. Data consumption in Asia is has seen the biggest increase at 178%, to over 1.2 GB - up from just under 500 MB in 2015. As a result, data usage in Asia overtook Western Europe. This may be indicative of the types of data plans that users in these regions are using, but also of how people access the internet - with smartphones in Asia the most common way of getting online.

Of the countries included in the report, the US is still the biggest consumer of data. Despite this, there was only a 7% increase in data usage - the smallest increase of any market. When it comes to time spent online, the top three countries are China, the USA and India in third place (although latest data from Mary Meeker suggests India has now moved into second place). With a rapid increase in smartphone penetration and mobile Internet usage, India also saw a 27% increase in the average number of apps installed by users.

The APUS User System includes a news and recommendation app called APUS Know, APUS Picks - APUS’ own take on Google Play Store, and APUS Discover - a way to find out about popular apps in your vicinity.

Since tweaking the algorithms for APUS’ proprietary app recommendation system in June 2015, APUS has seen a 212% increase in the number of users downloading apps. Apps recommended via APUS Discovery are seeing a 20% retention rate after 90 days; this compares to the industry average of just 5%.

Designed to make using Android devices easier and more enjoyable, the APUS User System has engineered to be an incredibly small 3MB download - making it ideal for developing countries where mobile device and data costs can be high. The company, which was the youngest ever unicorn from China - achieving a $1 billion valuation in just seven months - began its monetisation strategy in January 2016. Since then, APUS has increased its revenues rapidly and steadily. It expects to grow by 100% annually until 2019, thanks to its unique AI and machine learning algorithms that deliver the right content, adverts and promotions to users.

Please download the report: 2015-apus-user-report.pdf