Study: Samsung’s Apps Are Ubiquitous but Unloved

As Samsung Electronics's best-selling smartphones face increasing competition from a horde of Chinese lookalikes, one of the South Korean giant’s key goals has been to translate demand for its devices into interest for Samsung’s homegrown software and services. But a new study shows how far the company still has to go.

Strategy Analytics, a Newton (MA)-based research firm, said in a report that US users of Samsung’s devices spend little time on its own messaging, music and voice-activated applications including apps like ChatON, the South Korean company’s answer to services like WhatsApp, Line and Viber.

The report said that US users of Samsung’s Galaxy S3 and S4 smartphones logged an average of six seconds per month using ChatON, compared to more than 11 hours per month on Facebook and about two hours per month on Instagram. On average, users spent just seven minutes during the month on an array of Samsung apps -- including ChatON, voice-activated search app S Voice and app store Samsung Hub. By contrast, they spent an average of 149 minutes on just three apps by software partner Google -- its app store Play Store, video-watching site YouTube and its flagship search engine.