Flurry report: Shopping and productivity dominate mobile app growth in 2014

Reports showing mobile application usage typical show that gaming is the most popular area of growth. Flurry from Yahoo! reports that wasn't the case in 2014 as shopping and productivity dominated the growth of app usage.

Overall, Flurry's data shows that application usage on mobile devices grew 76 percent from 2013 to 2014. The growth in productivity and shopping, 174 percent, shows that people are figuring out that their mobile devices can be very useful tools and are not just for gaming and entertainment.

Apple Pay didn't launch until the end of 2014 so it may not have had much of an impact on these 2014 figures, but it will be interesting to see if it's adoption and growth can be captured in 2015.

Microsoft Office is now available on iOS and Android, in addition to Windows Phone, so this expansion may have helped boost the producivity and utilities category. Flurry's Simon Khalaf states, "It makes sense that productivity in the cloud should be mobile-first, powering the "anytime, anywhere" nature of the way we work today."

Messaging took third place with 103 percent growth and health & fitness came in tied with travel at fourth place. Messaging and social are key components to using a mobile device so that usage is expected. Further development and release of wearables, Apple Health, Microsoft Health, and Google Fit likely contributed to the increase in the health and fitness category.