Smartphone ownership – and mobile app usage – in the United States continues to soar, but a new survey from Nielsen shows that smartphone adoption is happening among young adults much faster than other age groups. We’ll explore these findings, along with the latest Apple rumors, a look back at Android’s humble beginnings and new data on international mobile app usage, in this week’s Fiksu Feed.

Nielsen’s new third quarter study indicates that 62 percent of U.S. mobile users between the ages of 25 and 34 own smartphones, compared to just 43 percent of all U.S. mobile phone users. In an interview with New York Times, Don Kellogg, director of telecom research and insights at Nielsen, said, “This is a wake-up call for potential advertisers waiting for a tipping point for mobile media or for smartphones to reach the majority. We’re already there with certain segments.”

The same Nielsen study shows that Android remains at the forefront of all mobile operating systems – holding strong with 43 percent of the market.  Jessica Dolcourt of CNET takes a look back at the Android era – from the days of G1 to the newly released Android 4.0, better known as Ice Cream sandwich. She remarks, “I'm amazed at how far Google has come since the early days, when it was trying to convince the world that phones with the friendly green extraterrestrial could make applesauce of the revolutionary iPhone.”

Though Android continues to lead the smartphone market, you can bet that Apple isn’t sitting idly by. Forbes reported that the company is rumored to “completely overhaul” its products next year – with enhancements to its iPads, iPhones, iMacs and MacBook Airs. DigiTimes broke the news early Thursday, citing “sources in the upstream supply chain.”

The Next Web reported on new data from Flurry Analytics showing “astronomical” growth of mobile apps in China. The study tracked instances of use across 120,000 apps from January to October 2011, singling out the top 10 countries where app use has skyrocketed this year. While most of these countries showed jumps in usage between 300 and 500 percent, China took the lead with a mind-boggling 870 percent increase. Flurry attributes this “hyper-growth” to falling prices for older iPhone models and the surge in available Android devices.

TechCrunch published a great infographic from mobile ad exchange Mobclix, illustrating exactly what happens across the mobile space every 60 seconds. Author Chris Valazco quips, “In case you were curious, in the time it took me to write out my first sentence, over 23,000 iOS apps were downloaded from Apple’s App Store.”

Last but certainly not least, Angry Birds has reached the 500 million mark, making the insanely popular app the most downloaded game of all-time. Developer Rovio announced this major milestone on Wednesday at an event held in Finland. Wall Street Journal has more.

Last month, Apple announced that its App Store alone now contains more than 425,000 apps. For app marketers, your challenge is finding a way to make your app stand out in such a massive crowd.

Discoverability hinges on getting your app ranked high enough in the app stores. Additionally, in order to scale your business, you need to find a cost-effective way to secure enough downloads. And the real kicker – you need to achieve all of these marketing goals without breaking the bank.

Before throwing your hands up in defeat, rethinking your career choice and going prematurely grey, know that you’re not alone, and that there are ways to overcome these challenges.

Following are four simple and proven best practices for developing your creative and effectively promoting your app for profitable and sustainable loyal user acquisition and business growth. By employing these, you can greatly increase the likelihood of finding loyal users in a cost-efficient way. You can also read additional strategies in our recent post Five Ways to Drive Downloads and Loyal Users for Your Mobile App and in our e-book.

1. With App Ad Copy, Less is More
Unlike traditional ad copy, mobile real estate is limited. Keep your ad text short, punchy and straight to the point, and make your call to action immediate and valuable. When writing effective mobile ads, we recommend the following:

• Your ad copy should resemble that of Google AdWord copy, rather than traditional copy
• Do your research and identify the most compelling, targeted keywords to use in your title
• Highlight key benefits and functionalities that clearly differentiate your app
• Keep it easy to understand, and keep jargon to a minimum

2. Practice Makes Perfect
Once you've developed your creative, conduct A/B testing by comparing a baseline, control sample to a variety of single-variable test samples across all traffic sources to determine which ads perform the best – resulting in higher ranking in the app stores and/or garnering increased downloads. By looking at the results from different tests, you'll be able to identify the ads that consistently produce the best results and swap them for lower-performing ads on a per source basis. But don't stop there – routinely play with different copy combinations with the goal of continuously increasing conversions.

3. Write Your Landing Page for Mobile Consumption
It is extremely important to remember your audience when developing your app store landing page. When composing your landing page, don't focus on how it will look on the desktop, but rather how it will look on mobile devices, since this is where the majority of app download decision-making will occur.

4. Drive Downloads Through Your Title
When creating your app's title, it is essential to look beyond your brand and also consider terms of app store search results and conversion of users who arrive on your app store landing page. For example, if you have a photography-oriented app, speak to the functionality of the app in its title by referencing a feature like "picture color". This way you are just as likely to appear in the app store search results for a user looking for a "photography" solution.

It's true that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for marketing to and securing mobile app users. But the good news is that there is a way to overcome these challenges and build a successful, sustainable mobile app business – and reduce your user acquisition costs by up to 10x in the process. To learn more about these tips and tricks and many others, download the free e-book, Best Practices for Growing Your Mobile App Business.