“Daily just isn’t enough,” claims Mark Mulligan, Managing Director and Analyst at MIDiA Research and RAIN guest columnist.
“In our digital lives today, we tend to use our favourite apps throughout the day,” UK-based Mulligan observes. “So, why does the entertainment tech industry still focus on daily, weekly, or, in way too many cases, monthly usage?”
It’s a good question, and Mulligan says the answer is simple: “The less frequency your measure of activity, the bigger your audience figure.” He asserts that the industry should move beyond what he calls “inflated vanity metrics.”
To do so, MIDiA Research examined survey data from Q3 2023, fielded in a global sprawl that included U.S., Canada, UK, Australia, France, Thailand, and Australia. The chart below summarizes results.
Endel, which obtains the most frequent daily use in this chart, is a music delivery app specializing in relaxing and sleep-inducing audio.
Interestingly — and to Mulligan’s point — Spotify ranks near the bottom of the apps represented in this survey while Endel (a specialty streamer focused on relaxing and sleep-inducing audio) is the most frequently used. (Counter intuitively, it seems to us.) Amazon’s two services (Prime and Free) are near the bottom, and so is Spotify (again, not a predictable result for us).
Mark Mulligan also examines daily use of music as an activity category compared to games, social media, video, podcasts and audiobooks. In that study, time of day illustrated trends, as shown below:
This is all part of a much bigger report available to MiDIA Research subscribers. Go HERE for info.