ComScore enhances mobile behavior measurement with Mobile Metrix 2.0

ComScore's Sarah Radwanick, senior manager of marketing communications

Marketing research and digital analytics firm comScore has launched Mobile Metrix 2.0, an enhanced version of its mobile behavior measurement service, said Sarah Radwanick, senior manager of marketing communications for comScore, in an email. The new service measures consumers' mobile usage across mobile browsers, apps and distinct smartphone platforms, she said. 

“With this data, marketers are able to determine such items as the size of their mobile audiences on apps versus browsers, their reach by smartphone platforms and demographic characteristics of their visitors,” said Radwanick.

Mobile Metrix 2.0 builds on comScore's existing 1.0 version by expanding reporting across iOS, Android and RIM smartphones, Radwanick said. Mobile Metrix 1.0 only provided usage via mobile browser, so app usage was not observable.

The new service also implements "Unified Digital Measurement," comScore's audience measurement methodology.

Radwanick said one of the most surprising findings was the dominant role of apps in mobile media engagement. In relation to the product launch, ComScore also released a small portion of findings associated with the syndicated data set available with Mobile Metrix 2.0, including the statistic that 82% of time spent with mobile media occurs via apps.

The share of time spent across apps and browsers revealed that although the access methods were represented by similar audience sizes, apps drove the biggest share of engagement, representing four of every five mobile media minutes, according to comScore.

"For marketers, this should be an important takeaway as they evaluate how best to engage their audience,” Radwanick said. 

According to findings, Google sites ranked first with 96% of smartphone users, or 94 million unique visitors, aged 18 years and older using iOS, Android and RIM smartphones. Facebook ranked second with 78 million visitors, followed by Yahoo! sites with 66.2 million visitors. Amazon came in fourth with 44 million visitors.

Social networking also proved to be a popular activity on smartphones. Facebook ranked first with mobile users engaging more than seven hours via browser or app in March. Twitter followed with an average engagement time of nearly two hours.