US operator Verizon identified Tik Tok and YouTube as the dominant mobile apps for 2023 in its inaugural Consumer Connections Report, which also found total mobile network traffic increased 129 per cent over the past five years.

Citing various sources, the report found US users spent an average of approximately 1 hour 42 minutes per day in 2023 on the Tik Tok app compared with about 1 hour on YouTube and approximately 39 minutes on Facebook.

YouTube users consumed an average of 2.30GBs per week in 2023 compared to 2.17GBs a year earlier. Tik Tok mobile viewers used 1.73GBs in 2023, down from 1.78GBs the previous year while Facebook consumption was flat at 0.46 GBs.

On average, 208 million users opened the YouTube app at least once a week in 2023 compared to 216 million the year prior. Over the same time frame, Facebook users who opened the app at least once a week dropped from 216 million in 2022 to 168 million last year while Tik Tok saw a decline from 120 million to 116 million.

Overall, 47 per cent of consumer mobile traffic was devoted to video in the second half of 2023 while “applications” and “marketplace” tied for second at 10 per cent each.

The report also found city-level monthly mobile smartphone usage grew 34 per cent, increasing from an average of 11.5GB per line in January 2022 to 15.5GB per line in November 2023.

The operator stated the data sources used for the Consumer Connections Report included third-party information from data.ai and Apple Music, “and de-identified and aggregate information about customer traffic on Verizon’s connectivity services”.