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Phablet is killer mobile form factor with skyrocketing usage rate: report

Phablet usage is growing at almost four times the rate of medium-size smartphones thanks to strong media and entertainment consumption that positions the devices as mobile televisions, according to new data from Flurry Analytics. 

Flurry?s research discovered that, between January 2014 and January 2015, usage of phablets such as the iPhone 6 Plus and the Samsung Galaxy Note grew 148 percent. With usage of full-size tablets shrinking, a key insight from the data is that marketers need to start thinking about how to take advantage of the growing phablet form factor. 

?[The big news for marketers is] the increased real estate and faster processors in phablets enable for better video ad experiences for users,? said Simon Khalaf, vice president of Flurry Products at Yahoo. ?It's like having a TV in your pocket.

?The most surprising data here is the fast rise of media and entertainment app usage on phablets,? he said. ?With the bigger screen and faster processors, people are beginning to use phablets as more than a mobile phone, also as a mobile television.?

Media consumption
Flurry took a deeper look at the app categories where usage has grown on phablets faster than on other devices. The findings show that phablets are a powerful media consumption device, with sports growing 427 percent more on phablets than any other device type. 

The fastest growing categories on phablets were music, media and entertainment, sports and news and magazines, with all significantly over-indexing the growth on other device types. 

The strong performance by phablets helped propel overall usage up 78 percent for the mobile mobile and app industry as measured by the number of sessions. 


The 148 percent growth rate experienced by phablets is 3.9 times higher than the growth of medium-sized phones such as the iPhone 4 and iPhone 5. 

During the same period, small tablet use grew only 14 percent and usage of full-size tablets shrank 20 percent. 

Mobile Web is victim
The findings caused Flurry to suggest that phablets are a killer mobile form factor because of the way they combine a bigger screen, ease of navigation and the true mobility of a phone. 

While tablet usage rates are declining, the true victim of the phablet is the mobile Web, according to Flurry. 

The report states that since the ascension of phablets, the total time spent in apps compared to mobile Web picked up an additional 2 percent, increasing total time spent in apps to 88 percent of total time spent on mobile in the United States, versus 12 percent on the mobile Web. This is compared to 86% and 14% respectively in April of 2014, the respective numbers were 86 percent and 14 percent. 


Flurry?s data shows that the shift is predominantly attributed to phablets. 

?Because phablet growth is in early stages, marketers aren't yet fully taking advantage of the new form function,? Mr. Khalaf said. ?Marketers need to start thinking of the phablet as a portable TV. 

?Marketers can think about what they've been doing on TV and use the same guiding principles to their ads reaching their audience on phablets,? he said. 

Final Take
?Chantal Tode is senior editor on Mobile Marketer, New York