Bangalore: Consumers prefer to have low-rate or free apps available for download, without having them disrupted by ads, according to Ars Technica, which built an article on the Neilsen “State of the Media report” for 2011.

The infographic report demonstrated a number of interesting facts about consumer-behavior related to mobile-app downloads and ads (‘mobiles’ referring to tablets as well as Smartphone devices).  Out of all apps downloaded, an average of about 33 percent was a combination of free as well as paid apps. The part of the mobile-apps downloading population that preferred free apps instead (which made up the majority) usually got apps that helped them play games, connect to social networking sites, and play music. Paid app-downloaders got navigation and mapping apps (29 percent), and music apps (27 percent) installed on their devices.

A note-worthy trend pointed out by the statistics was that 51 percent of all people who downloaded apps didn’t mind being interrupted by video ads as long as they paid for the content they acquired. This contradicted the statistics related to video apps that Neilsen projected, since 76 percent of the video-downloading population preferred to watch videos with less or just a few interrupting ads. The combination of these facts leads one to believe that consumers wouldn’t mind ads as long as the ads didn’t interrupt video content that they were accessing.

86 percent of consumers wanted video apps with low or free subscription rates, stated the report.

Moreover, present-day consumers are more aware that ads help reduce the price of content. How their knowledge of the same affects the market though, is yet to be measured.