Waze has 110m monthly active users

"I recently moved from San Francisco to New York City. While on opposite coasts, with very different pizza quality, one thing they have in common is bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic. Waze was built to address this: “outsmarting traffic, together.” I am proud to see this movement grow to more than 110 million monthly active users globally. Every month, more than 12 million Wazers report over 60 million incidents on Waze. Each report proves something many never thought possible — given the right tools, people will help other drivers and work together to “outsmart traffic” and create a better experience on the road. Through these daily acts of cooperation, we’ve helped each other save time, bypass dangerous hazards, and in the process, we’ve created the most up-to-date map in the world."

Source:  Blog post from Waze, 10th October 2018

Google & Facebook own 8 of the 10 most popular apps in the US

Source:  June 2017 data from comScore, reported by Techcrunch, 25th August 2017

Siri processes 1bn requests a week (& more Apple stats)

"The company reported that its App Store has crossed 100 billion app downloads, with $30 billion being paid out to developers so far.
In terms of adoption of its latest software, Apple claims 55% of all Mac users are running on OS X Yosemite while 83% users are running on iOS 8.
Apple made major announcements for its digital assistant Siri this year and claimed that it serves up 1 billion requests a week and is 40% faster and more accurate compared to last year.
Maps is the other Apple service that is getting great new upgrades with iOS 9, with the company claiming that Maps was used 3.5 times more than the next leading maps app with its service getting over 5 billion requests per week.
Apple Pay, the company’s relatively new mobile payments service is now supported by 2,500 banks with there being over 1 million locations where consumers can use the service.
iOS 9 isn’t as major an update as what we’ve seen in the past. Instead, the company is working on ways to make it faster and more powerful. Apple claims iOS 9 offers a 50% reduction in CPU usage while drawing while an iPhone 6 running on iOS 9 lasts for 1 hour extra in a typical usage scenario."

Source:  Stats from WWDC 2015, reported by Next Big What, 9th June 2015

Ads on Waze led to a 53% uplift in likelihood to visit a location

"Brands such as Wells Fargo and Dunkin’ Donuts are discovering that users of navigational application Waze are more likely to drive to a retail location after seeing associated Pins or Takeovers.
Waze has released its first set of efficacy studies and also found a lift in ad recall for users exposed to brands’ Pins and Takeovers, two marketing offerings available on the app. One advertiser, Wells Fargo, found that Waze users exposed to an offer for a free credit report were more likely to visit a branch.
“For Wells Fargo, the bank wanted to reach consumers close to Wells Fargo locations, and track branch visits by Waze users,” said Sara Hall, product marketing manager for ads at Waze.
“Waze showed a huge lift in navigations to branch in the exposed group vs. a control,” she said.
“We were also able to test for ad recall, showing that Waze users remembered seeing the Free Credit Report offer.”
[...]
Waze compared the driving behavior of a group exposed to a particular brand’s ad to those were not exposed to the ad.
Specifically, Waze compared the frequency with which users searched for and navigated to the advertiser's locations before and after ad exposure in the case of the exposed group and before and after the start of the campaign in the case of the control.
The average navigational lift was 53 percent for those exposed to the ad. In multiple cases, exposed users were more than twice as likely to navigate to a business as a direct result of seeing associated Pins and or Takeovers."

Source:  Mobile Marketer, 27th March 2015

A world map of the top social networks in 2009 & 2013

Click to enlarge

Source:  Data from Alexa, compiled by Vincos.it
Note - While we all have problems with Alexa data, it pretty much tallies with what I've seen from other sources, and illustrates the big shake-out and consolidation that has happened in the past 4 years

Google bought Waze for $1.3 Billion

"In a bid to outsmart traffic, Google has bought the crowd-sourced navigation app Waze, a Tel Aviv-based start-up.
The search giant reportedly paid $1.3bn (£835m), according to Reuters, although the firm did not disclose the financial terms for the deal.
The Waze app combines online maps with updates from other users about traffic jams, road works and accidents.
It is believed that Facebook and Apple were also interested in purchasing the Israeli firm.
The takeover could help Google improve the accuracy of its own navigation system, Google Maps."

Source:  BBC News, 11th June 2013

Google Maps for iOS 6 was downloaded more than ten million times in two days

"More than 10 million downloads in less than 48 hours after release!
We're excited for the positive reception of Google Maps for iPhone around the world. Congratulations to the Maps Team on the recognition for the passion and hard work they poured into it, for this release and over the last 7+ years."

Source:  Post on Google+ by Jeff Huber of Google

Google Maps features over 1 million public transit stops in over 500 cities

"Since 2005, we’ve collaborated with hundreds of transit authorities around the world to make a comprehensive resource for millions of riders to find out which bus, train, subway or tram can take them to their next destination. Today, Google Maps has public transportation schedules for more than one million transit stops worldwide, in nearly 500 cities including New York, London, Tokyo and Sydney.
Public transportation information is especially useful when it’s in the palm of your hand. Today we’re releasing an update to the Google Maps for Android app (version 6.10) which makes this transit information even more useful. We’ve made some changes to the Transit Lines layer, so that you can select a specific mode of public transportation (train, bus, tram or subway) to display on the mobile map, hiding the other modes. This is helpful in areas where there is a tight concentration of several types of public transit."

Source:  Google blog, 15th August 2012

28% of American adults use mobile or social location-based services, including mobile maps

"More than a quarter (28%) of all American adults use mobile or social location-based services of some kind. This includes anyone who takes part in one or more of the following activities:
28% of cell owners use phones to get directions or recommendations based on their current location—that works out to 23% of all adults.
A much smaller number (5% of cell owners, equaling 4% of all adults) use their phones to check in to locations using geosocial services such as Foursquare or Gowalla. Smartphone owners are especially likely to use these services on their phones.
9% of internet users set up social media services such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn so that their location is automatically included in their posts on those services. That works out to 7% of all adults."
Source:  Pew Internet & American Life Project, 6th September 2011

Google own 3 of the 5 most-accessed mobile apps in the UK

"In April 2011, 40 per cent of the 21.8 million UK mobile internet users accessed a connected application*. Google Maps ranked as the top mobile app with 6.4 million users, reaching 73.3 per cent of all UK app users. Yahoo’s Weather app ranked second with 3.6 million followed by Facebook’s app with 3.5 million unique visitors. Another two apps published by Google - Google Mobile and YouTube - rounded out the top five, highlighting Google’s strong position among UK mobile consumers."
Source:  Data from the GSMA Mobile Media Metrics Report, reported in a press release from comScore, 22nd June 2011

40% of Google Maps usage is through mobile devices

"Mayer revealed that 40% of Google Maps usage is mobile. And Christmas and New Years day had mobile usage of Maps surpass the desktop — which is a first for Google products. Google Maps now has 150 million mobile users. To put that in context, Maps for mobile had 100 million users in August of last year."
Source:  Marissa Mayer of Google, speaking at SXSW, reported by Techcrunch, 11th March 2011