App analytics firm Flurry found that phablets, such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (pictured), now account for nearly four times as much app activity as they did a year ago.

In terms of app sessions, phablets accounted for 11 per cent of the total, up from 3 per cent in 2013 and increasing disproportionately compared to the installed base growth.

The proportion of the installed base made up by phablets doubled in the past year, with 6 per cent of mobile users now having these devices.

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Flurry, which was recently acquired by Yahoo, found that no single app category dominates on phablets, with gaming, social and entertainment the most popular categories — the same as with smaller smartphones.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given their greater screen size, phablets account for a significant proportion of reading activity. Around 10 per cent all time spent reading on mobile devices is spent on phablets — considerably greater than their share of installed base, and up from 3 per cent in 2013.

Flurry sampled 59,214 devices globally, dividing them into five groups: small phones (screens of less than 3.5 inches), medium phones (3.5-4.9 inches), phablets (5-6.9 inches), small tablets (7 to 8.4 inches and full size tablets (8.5 inches or greater).

It also found that small tablets grew from 5 per cent to 7 per cent of the installed device base over the same period, with full-size tablets reaching 15 per cent, up from 13 per cent a year earlier.

Phablets to drive uptake of business apps

In separate research, the UK’s largest mobile operator, EE, predicted a rise in adoption and usage of business apps, as small businesses increasingly make use of mobile devices with larger screens.

EE found that 21 per cent of small business employees plan to acquire a device with a screen of 5.5 inches or larger for work purposes. Main uses of larger screen devices are managing email and editing documents or spreadsheets.

Reflecting the findings of the research EE has launched Business Apps, a range of mobile products to help boost productivity for small businesses.