Report: Website usage has grown 57% since 2020

Although smartphones are ubiquitous now, data from Amplitude shows that websites are experiencing a major comeback — since January 2020, website usage has grown 57%, compared to only 36% growth for app usage during the same period. Amplitude analyzed the behaviors of millions of digital users accessing apps and websites from January 2020 through December 2021. The data shows that while there are still more users on apps overall, the surge of website activity has brought the two channels closer to an even split. By December 2021, 54% of users were on apps and 46% of users were on websites.

In some industries, the growth of website users even outpaced that of apps. With students relying heavily on websites for education-related software and online course work, web use in the education sector increased 115%. As companies rapidly adapted to remote work, white-collar workers were mainly accessing the B2B SaaS products integral to their jobs from the web, leading to a 101% increase in web usage from January 2020 to December 2021.

While apps continue to be the preferred access point for services like food products and personal finance, web usage is still high. Food delivery became a social distancing necessity, growing in use by 162% on apps and 68% on the web. By December 2021, 77% of all monthly active users accessing banking products were doing so via apps, but web usage over the two-year period still grew 61% compared to January 2020.

For the entertainment sector, use of websites and apps grew almost in parallel over the last two years, with 22% growth on websites and 26% growth on apps. Even so, web wins out in this industry — 60% of monthly users accessing digital entertainment did so via websites, versus 40% via apps.

For organizations weighing which digital channel to invest in to reach their target market, this report clearly answers, “both.” This data shows how critical it is for business leaders to prioritize both the app and the website in the holistic customer journey. Web’s not dead, by any stretch of the imagination.

Read the full report by Amplitude.