Native data applications – incorporating social networking, multimedia and map services – are fast becoming the most popular way to access online information on a mobile device, at the expense of mobile Web browsers. That is the finding of a new report from Finnish mobile analytics company Zokem, which also provides a comparison of how Facebook and Twitter fare in the mobile world.

Zokem claims that native data applications already capture 50 percent of all data traffic in terms of volume (packets), and 46 percent of data usage in terms of time spent accessing content. As shown in the chart below, although Web browsers currently remain the single most popular form of accessing data, native non-browser based applications are increasing their share.

“Whereas mobile Web browsing is still growing fast, interestingly the use of native data apps is growing even faster, thanks to app stores and a constantly increasing number of pre-embedded easy-to-use mobile data apps to be found in today’s smartphones”, says Dr. Hannu Verkasalo, executive chairman of Zokem. “Only a few years ago Web browsing was about 70-80 percent of smartphone-driven Internet usage, but now it seems to be changing.”

“App stores, combined with a variety of non-browser based data applications pre-embedded in today’s smartphones, are now driving the growth of the mobile Internet,” added Verkasalo. “There is still a lot of usage inside the Web browser. However, as mobile consumption patterns get richer, and people learn to require more and more functionalities, the native applications in most cases provide the best user experience. Take your Android phone as an example; do you want to access YouTube with your browser if you have a shortcut on your home screen for the brilliantly working native YouTube app?”

The chart below gives an interesting insight into what data services are being accessed by smartphone users. In the social networking space, for example, Facebook’s native application catches 12 percent of monthly users (who are subscribed to data plans), with high ‘face time’ of 188 minutes on average per month. Twitter, on the other hand, is used even more, averaging 311 minutes a month although it has a smaller monthly user base of only 4 percent of smartphone users.

Outlining its methodology, Zokem says its analysis is based on “patented non-parametric measurements that take place directly in smartphones.” In this study, the company analysed a set of more than 10,000 smartphone users, including 6.5 million “distinct smartphone application usage sessions in 16 countries during 2009 and 2010.” www.zokem.com