Fifty-one percent of mothers who own a smartphone downloaded more than 16 applications to their smartphones as of March 2011, according to a study conducted by Mom Central Consulting of mothers who own a smartphone. The results of the study were reported on eMarketer Daily.
Top app categories included social networking, games, entertainment and the weather. Other popular categories were music, news, lifestyle and health and fitness. Noteworthy for healthcare marketers, roughly half of the moms surveyed by Mom Central reported downloading health- and fitness-related apps.
A BabyCenter study about how moms use smartphones for health and wellness also showed that moms index higher than the general population in most categories when it comes to smartphone activities, and health was no exception.
One in three moms used her smartphone for health purposes, compared to 22 percent of the general population. Further, a BabyCenter “Dr. Mom Study” conveyed that nine out of 10 moms who own smartphones used the devices to research health conditions. The majority of them also tracked information related to health and wellness.
Moms, often referred to in the medical community as a family’s Chief Health Officer, are increasingly using smartphones to manage their family’s health information. The BabyCenter study shows not only do moms want to use smartphones to manage and track health and wellness information, they also would like to use smartphones to track personal health components such as weight, exercise and calorie intake.
These findings indicate that the opportunity for healthcare marketers to reach moms through smartphone devices is ripe. Moms are embracing smartphones for a variety of activities and are using mobile resources such as apps to make their daily lives easier.
