“Mobile Addicts”, defined as consumers who use mobile apps 60 times or more per day, grew in number by 59 per cent from 176 million in Q2 2014 to a “whopping” 280 million in Q2 2015, according to a new Flurry report (click image below to enlarge).

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In the same time, “Regular Users” of apps (1-16 times a day) increased from 784 million to 985 million, and “Super Users” (16-60 times a day) grew from 440 million to 590 million.

For the heaviest users, messaging is a key category. The report notes that Mobile Addicts use messaging apps 6.56 times more than an average mobile consumer.

“This validates many of our analyses this year that messaging has become mobile’s killer application,” the report observed.

Utilities and productivity app usage was high as well, “further validating assumptions that mobile addicts are using their smart device as the sole computing device and conducting every aspect of their lives on that device.”

Games, news, media and entertainment apps are also a big hit with mobile addicts and Simon Khalaf, SVP of publisher products at Flurry, even said he believes “the only newspaper Mobile Addicts have touched is actually on a mobile app”.

“We were most surprised by the finance category. Mobile addicts use finance apps 2.5 times more than the average mobile consumer,” he said.

“The mobile industry is moving fast. It is actually hard to believe that mobile addicts are now 280 million strong and even harder to predict what their number will be next year,” Khalaf said.