//Addition: We've since spoken to Flurry about how the figures would change if estimated Facebook activity was added. The argument is that the social networking category would be boosted to around 36 percent share, with games dropping to around 46 percent, and the rest squeezed to 18 percent. Hence, the conclusion that games are the dominant category remains intact.

If there was any doubt about how significant games are in terms of engagement then a new study from Flurry should lay that concern to rest.

The report, which uses numbers taken from over 140,00 apps using Flurry's analytics, indicates that almost half of all US consumer time spent with mobile apps is spent playing games.

Games took 49 percent of the the total time spent on apps, followed in second place by Social Networking, which managed 30 percent, meaning that these two categories alone control 79 percent of consumers total app time.

Break it down

"Any way we slice it, Games and Social Networking apps deliver the most engaging experience on the web and mobile today, and set the stage for the battleground for controlling the consumer relationship going forward for all platform providers on all platforms," Flurry's Charles Newark-French writes.



Entertainment apps (7 percent) and news apps (6 percent) took up the rest of Flurry's chart, with the final 8 percent of time took up by Others.

However, as it points out, because Flurry doesn't directly track Facebook's iOS and Android apps (it doesn't use its analytics), this report will dramatically underestimate social networking's share.

[source: Flurry]