A greater proportion of US iPhone owners use mobile commerce apps (67.5 per cent) than their Android counterparts (43.9 per cent), with eBay (unsurprisingly) being the most popular overall, according to a study by Arbitron Mobile.

iPhone users spend more time using such apps (105.3 minutes/month compared with 87.6 minutes/month) and conduct more sessions (35 sessions/month rather than 29.5 sessions/month), the company said.

The eBay app is used by the largest share of US smartphone panellists (14.3 per cent), followed by Amazon Mobile (13 per cent), and with the top five rounded out by Groupon, Passbook and Craigslist Mobile.

While Passbook, Apple’s digital wallet app, is among the top 10 in terms of reach, it “garnered far less average time in use and far fewer sessions than apps that include the ability to search for something to buy”.

Passbook is used for 2.6 sessions per month on average, compared with 9.1 for Groupon and 34.6 for eBay.

However, mobile commerce web domains are accessed “by a significantly larger share of US smartphone panellists”, whether directly via a browser or as a consequence of app use.

In terms of the time spent and number of sessions, however, the use of mobile web domains is “significantly smaller” than for their app counterparts.

As an example, the Amazon web domain was access by 34.7 per cent of US smartphone panellists, compared with 13 per cent who accessed the Amazon app.

But Amazon web use from mobile devices was 19.8 minutes per month, compared to 40 minutes for the app, with an average of 5.7 sessions, compared to 10.9 for the app.