Uses and gratifications of mobile application users

Mobile communication follows the development trend of internet, users can link with mobile software stores through internet, and download all kinds of applications, which has provided human beings with more diversified information application forms, and gradually changed people´s living habits and operation mode. It is indicated by research reports that growth rate of global smart phone in 2010 is as high as 78.1%, showing that smart phone gradually becomes the mainstream in mobile phone market. Smart phone has the function of installing applications, provides users with more diversified mobile value-added services and will change the use habits in the future. In this study, motives of mobile application users and their degree of gratifications after use are preliminarily discussed based on the uses and gratifications theory, using the questionnaire survey method and with the main purpose of investigating the users with the experience of using mobile applications, and understanding their demographic characteristics, use motives of mobile applications, and degree of gratifications after use. Altogether 591 effective questionnaires are recovered, and data are analyzed with the statistical methods such as descriptive statistics, t-test, and oneway ANOVA. It is discovered through research that female users of mobile applications are more than male ones, most of them are students aged 20-29, have educational level of university (college), and monthly income below 625 US dollars. In respect of the use behavior, most users have use experience of more than five years, they most often use built-in applications within the mobile phone, download applications from mobile forums, usually use less than one hour in one day, and most often use game/entertainment applications in their workplaces or schools. And the main motive that mobile application users can obtain maximum gratification is “relaxing and relieving stress”.