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Web or App
By Alan Hellawell and Alex Yao |
December 28, 2012, Friday
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FOR much of the time since the emergence of the Internet, a browser has provided the primary "on-ramp" to the Internet.
The trend became more evident in the PC-based Internet era as web-based technologies evolve. For example, recent years saw the increasing popularity of web games and online videos, while a couple years ago, the online gaming market was dominated by traditional client-based games; watching video in an Internet environment was also completed primarily through video clients.
In addition to the advancement of web technologies, such as Flash, Web 2.0, which ensure more sophisticated human-computer interaction through the web, we view the "web-icization" of the PC-based Internet as also driven and supported by the growing user-friendliness of the web, and growing improvement in compatibility across the web due to reduced hardware and software requirements.
The mobile Internet seems to have evolved in an opposite direction, particularly after the introduction of the smartphone. People tend to use apps much more frequently on smartphones and tablets.
According to Flurry, the monthly average time spent per capita on mobile apps reached 127 minutes as of December 2012 in the US, up 35 percent month-on-month and 92 percent year-on-year. In comparison, time spent on the mobile web shrank 2 percent month-on-month to 70 minutes while time spent on television remained generally flat at 168 minutes in December.
The "app store," a concept believed to have been initiated by Apple, seems now to have become a mature business model, delivering apps from developers to end users.
Losing dominance
Many common Internet activities which were primarily accessed through browsers, such as search, mapping, and news browsing, are currently leveraged directly through dedicated apps. As such, the browser seems no longer as a dominant traffic entrance in the mobile Internet era. This could explain some of the perceived dominance lost by Baidu.
We believe the following reasons may have led to very much opposite trends in the mobile Internet compared to desktop. Firstly, unlike PCs, smartphones and tablets are highly mobile, thus eclipsing many of the conveniences brought by "web-icization."
Secondly, a mobile operation system, such as Google Inc's Android or Apple Inc's iOS, is generally easier to use than a desktop OS, as it is compatible with multiple desktop-based systems, and designed from an early stage around the touch screen. Accessing applications through a mobile browser meanwhile can make a simple process more complicated. We however note the innovations that leading mobile browser players such as UCWeb have made in this area.
Thirdly and the most importantly, for the time being, web technologies seem unable to support complex "human-device interaction," and broadly speaking, the user experience in the mobile Internet environment. Meanwhile, a web-based application can only access limited native devices or data, such as camera and contact book.
Replicating success
Will the success of the web be replicated in the mobile Internet era?
The increasing maturity of HTML5 technology seems to make the "web-icization" of the mobile Internet possible. Web apps, a type of app coded in a browser language and loaded within a browser, and hybrid apps, an app coded in both web language and computer language, have become popular more recently.
From a developer's perspective, the incorporation of web language allows the cross-platform compatibility of apps, thus reducing development costs.
We believe the hybrid app offers a better solution to mobile Internet "web-icization" for the time being, as firstly, it offers user experience similar to native apps, and secondly, it is distributed through an app store, thus avoiding potential "shocks" to existing mobile Internet eco-systems.
In essence, the battle between "web-icization" and "app-icization" represents the fight for the prized status of traffic entrance among the different mobile Internet players. Both browser-oriented companies, such as Baidu in the search realm, as well as dedicated browser developers such as UCWeb, and app-oriented companies, such as Sina in the social networking field, are likely to build their own "super apps."
Baidu has been actively building a web app eco-system. It is developing a strong cloud infrastructure which should aid in the exploration of web apps. Baidu Client, which runs on an independent browsing kernel while integrating Baidu's in-house services, serves as a good example of a hybrid app.
On the other hand, Sina seems to have extended its traffic generation capabilities by incorporating an app center into its Weibo client, an attempt in our view to become a hybrid app. Web-oriented apps, including both web apps and hybrid apps, are still in an early stage, with supporting technology structures, business models, to be perfected. We see the convergence of both eco-systems happening over a relatively long time.
Alan Hellawell and Alex Yao are research analysts at Deutsche Bank.
The trend became more evident in the PC-based Internet era as web-based technologies evolve. For example, recent years saw the increasing popularity of web games and online videos, while a couple years ago, the online gaming market was dominated by traditional client-based games; watching video in an Internet environment was also completed primarily through video clients.
In addition to the advancement of web technologies, such as Flash, Web 2.0, which ensure more sophisticated human-computer interaction through the web, we view the "web-icization" of the PC-based Internet as also driven and supported by the growing user-friendliness of the web, and growing improvement in compatibility across the web due to reduced hardware and software requirements.
The mobile Internet seems to have evolved in an opposite direction, particularly after the introduction of the smartphone. People tend to use apps much more frequently on smartphones and tablets.
According to Flurry, the monthly average time spent per capita on mobile apps reached 127 minutes as of December 2012 in the US, up 35 percent month-on-month and 92 percent year-on-year. In comparison, time spent on the mobile web shrank 2 percent month-on-month to 70 minutes while time spent on television remained generally flat at 168 minutes in December.
The "app store," a concept believed to have been initiated by Apple, seems now to have become a mature business model, delivering apps from developers to end users.
Losing dominance
Many common Internet activities which were primarily accessed through browsers, such as search, mapping, and news browsing, are currently leveraged directly through dedicated apps. As such, the browser seems no longer as a dominant traffic entrance in the mobile Internet era. This could explain some of the perceived dominance lost by Baidu.
We believe the following reasons may have led to very much opposite trends in the mobile Internet compared to desktop. Firstly, unlike PCs, smartphones and tablets are highly mobile, thus eclipsing many of the conveniences brought by "web-icization."
Secondly, a mobile operation system, such as Google Inc's Android or Apple Inc's iOS, is generally easier to use than a desktop OS, as it is compatible with multiple desktop-based systems, and designed from an early stage around the touch screen. Accessing applications through a mobile browser meanwhile can make a simple process more complicated. We however note the innovations that leading mobile browser players such as UCWeb have made in this area.
Thirdly and the most importantly, for the time being, web technologies seem unable to support complex "human-device interaction," and broadly speaking, the user experience in the mobile Internet environment. Meanwhile, a web-based application can only access limited native devices or data, such as camera and contact book.
Replicating success
Will the success of the web be replicated in the mobile Internet era?
The increasing maturity of HTML5 technology seems to make the "web-icization" of the mobile Internet possible. Web apps, a type of app coded in a browser language and loaded within a browser, and hybrid apps, an app coded in both web language and computer language, have become popular more recently.
From a developer's perspective, the incorporation of web language allows the cross-platform compatibility of apps, thus reducing development costs.
We believe the hybrid app offers a better solution to mobile Internet "web-icization" for the time being, as firstly, it offers user experience similar to native apps, and secondly, it is distributed through an app store, thus avoiding potential "shocks" to existing mobile Internet eco-systems.
In essence, the battle between "web-icization" and "app-icization" represents the fight for the prized status of traffic entrance among the different mobile Internet players. Both browser-oriented companies, such as Baidu in the search realm, as well as dedicated browser developers such as UCWeb, and app-oriented companies, such as Sina in the social networking field, are likely to build their own "super apps."
Baidu has been actively building a web app eco-system. It is developing a strong cloud infrastructure which should aid in the exploration of web apps. Baidu Client, which runs on an independent browsing kernel while integrating Baidu's in-house services, serves as a good example of a hybrid app.
On the other hand, Sina seems to have extended its traffic generation capabilities by incorporating an app center into its Weibo client, an attempt in our view to become a hybrid app. Web-oriented apps, including both web apps and hybrid apps, are still in an early stage, with supporting technology structures, business models, to be perfected. We see the convergence of both eco-systems happening over a relatively long time.
Alan Hellawell and Alex Yao are research analysts at Deutsche Bank.
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