The mobile Web and apps offer different benefits and serve different audiences. For now, mobile apps make the most of smartphone features because they integrate more deeply and more widely with the unique features of smart mobile devices that use an operating system. However, mobile websites cost less to reach a wider audience. The majority of consumers don’t own a smartphone and don’t access app stores; they are more likely to use a mobile browser and to access the Internet from their mobile phones. The barriers to accessing a site via a browser are lower than those to downloading an app—even for smartphone owners. Also, the fragmented nature of the mobile industry means that porting apps to different platform environments costs money—particularly when including maintenance and promotion costs.
The first point is vastly more important to most than the second. Until mobile browsers have the power that SDK-built mobile apps do, mobile-formatted websites will always be second class citizens.