Photo and video was the biggest growing app category outside games between October 2011 and March this year, according to app analytics company Flurry.
 
In terms of minutes spent per active user, the category increased by 89 percent, followed by music (72 percent), productivity (66 percent), social networking (54 percent) and entertainment (40 percent).
 
Flurry said the ability to capture, edit and share video on the move is a “compelling benefit” to consumers. The sharing behaviour encouraged by Facebook and wider availability of necessary technology on smartphones is also driving uptake of these app types.
 
The rise of video sharing apps like Viddy and SocialCam has actually taken place over the past nine months, according to Flurry’s data, with the growth in usage of photo and video apps increasing by 166 percent since July 2011. Other apps currently showing momentum are Path, Skout, Evernote and Spotify.
 
In terms of time spent viewing video content, online (mainly YouTube) increased by 71 percent in 2011 – from 276 minutes to 472 minutes – while mobile video consumption grew by 141 percent, from 63 minutes to 152 minutes. Flurry predicts the gap between time spent watching video online and on mobile devices will close in 2012 with online video consumption already having dropped by 10 percent and mobile video increasing by 52 percent.
 
Flurry gained the data from a sample of eight million mobile app users by tracking more than 180,000 apps across Android, BlackBerry, HTML5, iOS and Windows Phone.