Onavo, maker of apps for data compression and data-monitoring to slash mobile charges, has ranked travel search and booking apps by the percentage of US iPhone users who activated them at least once during June 2012 in a new infographic (below).
Kayak leads the mobile race. About 1 million iOS device users took a spin on the Kayak Mobile app in June 2012, says Onavo.
Number two is Hotel Tonight, with 0.724 percent of US iPhone users using its app to book upscale hotels at the last minute at least once during June 2012.
Onavo generated its statistics by projecting from what it says was a representative sample of 100,000 US iPhone users of iOS, a free data-saving app that which can help travelers avoid overage fees from telecoms while surfing the Internet on the go.
Acting as a proxy server, the Onavo Extend iOS version compresses data sent to your device from apps and websites, which means less bandwidth consumption.
By looking at anonymized, aggregated statistics to see which major travel apps were Onavo Extend users, the company identified trends in mobile data and app usage for Onavo Extend iOS. Here's the infographic:
Users download the app in the hopes of dodging telecom charges for hogging too much Internet bandwidth on a digital device.
In a clever move, Onavo’s app only squeezes data one-way -- when downloading data. When users instead upload data, no compression takes place. For instance, when sending images, the image file is left intact, to preserve their high resolution.
Founded in Tel Aviv in 2010, Onavo released its iOS app last year. Its similar app for Android, Onavo Extend offers data compression, too.
In January of 2012, it raised $10 million in Series B funding from sources led by Horizons Ventures of Hong Kong along with Motorola Mobility Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Magma Venture Partners.
The infographic was produced with the help of Visual.ly, a Web tool for creating infographics.