At the start of a new year, it’s natural to look back on the year gone by and take note of significant trends or topics. Fortunately for mobile app developers, a couple of trends reached important turning points in 2011, and indicate a potential for considerable sales increases in 2012.

The first trend was the the shift from desktop and laptop computers to mobile devices. In 2011, for the first time ever, sales of mobile devices outpaced computers. Increases in mobile devices means increased demand for mobile apps, which brings us to our second trend – People spent more time in mobile apps than Internet browsers.

For example, instead of opening a Safari window to access Facebook, people used apps on their mobile devices. As of June people spent 74 minutes a day in Internet browsers, and 81 minutes per day in mobile apps. The number of minutes spent in apps nearly doubled from the previous year, from 43 to 81 minutes.

As these trends continue, people will be looking for mobile apps that entertain, organize, and keep them connected with their friends and family.

@rich-brooks  do you spend more time on your laptop/desktop or on your mobile phone?

 If I am in my office I use my lap top & pc, this is about 30% of the time, when I am at a clients office or at a meeting outside of his office I use my smartphone to show & demonstrate the apps we build.

Do you spend more time on social media platforms (FB, LI, Tw) on a traditional computer or on a mobile device?

I would say this is a 50=50% split!
But if I am doing a local search I always use a smartphone!