Unfortunately consumer preference surveys are all over the place. Most I've seen show they do prefer an app but data isn't exactly open. If you have this data feel free to share.

I'm sure every industry is different. For my current work, our users overwhelmingly want a native app. The majority of traffic is mobile and iOS. Everytime I tell someone about what I do they open up the app store and I have to tell them it's not on there and they ask why.

Anyway, apps have higher monetary conversion. The desire to push users to the app needs no other reason.