Men Like Apps, Women Prefer WhatsApp

Men don't like asking for directions and women like to chat. Maybe you already knew that, but the human behaviour differences flow into specific business opportunities in digital media. Here's a look at some nuggets on how men and women differ in usage of their smartphones, based on a report by Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights.

First thing first, both men and women spend the same amount of time on their smartphones (81 hours per month to be exact or roughly a little less than 3 hours a day).

Calls & Messaging

Women spend more than 20 hours per month (or a fourth of the time on smartphones) on calls and messaging (11 on calls, 9 on messages) which is 5 hours more than the time spent by men (8 hours on calls, 7 on messages) on the same activity. Also, both incoming and outgoing calls last longer amongst women (hardly a surprise, well women love to talk).

Men spend 50 per cent more time browsing on their smartphones compared to women. The average number of websites visited by men in a month is 20 in comparison to 14 amongst women.

If we go deep into browsing behaviour, 43 per cent of the web pages visited by women are related to social networking websites which is pegged at 32 per cent for men. While there is not much to differentiate for mobile web search, VAS portals, webmail and videos, men do tend to browse through more adult content (9 per cent vs. 2 per cent for women, and here we thought only men were naughty), among others.

Women spend most of their time using smartphones for 'online' apps while men use their smartphones primarily for offline activities. Women spend on an average 46 minutes daily on online apps in comparison to just 25 minutes spent by men.

Out of the total, 70 per cent (32 minutes) of the time is spent by women only on IM (instant messaging)/chat apps like Google Talk, Nimbuzz and WhatsApp, while men spend only one fourth of that time (8 minutes) on such apps. Also, the fact that men hate asking for directions is evident from the fact that men access Google Maps much more than women.

An interesting find is that even though women spend much more time on apps than men (thrice as many women use WhatsApp than men), men experiment more with apps. On an average, men install 16 applications (both online and offline apps) in a month compared to just 11 by women and for both men and women, around 20 per cent of all the installed apps are online apps.