The smartphone industry has drastically proliferated and because of that, the need for apps that run on these smartphones has taken a leap. Smartphones have now become the remote control of our lives. Things happen in just a few taps. We have a surplus of mobile apps to choose from i.e. from playing games to listening to music, building connections to exploring nearby food outlets, booking cabs to buying clothes online; we use applications for all our needs.
In this article we have discussed the impact of increasing mobile app industry, the key for app economy, and the fact that how profitable is the mobile app market.
Global Impact
USD 86 billion was the revenue generated in 2014 at an annual growth rate of 27%. Global app revenue, in the app stores alone, rose 35% over the year to get very close to the $60 billion in 2018. To be more specific, the combined revenue of Google Play and the App Store was $58.7 billion this year.
Global mobile apps economy is the fastest growing economy across the world. America is currently the largest market with a share of nearly 55%. The Asian countries are expected to outpace the growth in terms of app downloads and usage in the coming years.
The key drivers for the app economy
With smartphones becoming more affordable to all kinds of people, the usage is increasing day by day..More than 75% of the world population uses mobile phones. The fast internet access combined with flexible user interfaces on smartphones has led to a drastic increase in the population using mobile phones.
An average smartphone user installs approx.17-18 apps, which would definitely lead to a rise in app usage. These days, customers have 64 to 256 GB of storage space and 6 to 8 GB of RAM on their mobile phones. It means more applications can be downloaded and faster processing can be achieved. Therefore, a customer these days has minimum 30-40 applications installed in his smartphone without any lag.
How profitable is the mobile app market?
The mobile app economy was worth $53 billion in 2012, and it has increased up to $58.7 billion in 2018. The figures vary slightly from researcher to researcher but the fact is that the mobile app industry is big. Revenue is generated through in-app purchases, in-app ads, and big data accumulation. The most promising sections are social networks, utility, advertising, productivity and an estimated 82% of all app revenue is eaten up by the remarkable games industry. The fastest growing markets are APAC and Latin America.
In the US, 75% of people use smartphones to access the internet everyday, and majority of the people do not leave their homes without their smartphones.
As the PewResearch Internet Project indicates, about half of all cell phone users have mobile apps installed, and two-thirds are regular mobile app users. Most users of mobile apps are between 25 and 30 years old, are married, live in suburban areas, and have had at least four years of college education. Mobile app users are generally younger, more educated and have higher income than other cell phone holders. Businesses that integrate mobile into their strategy can engage an entirely new type of customer – an instantly connected one. Smartphone users generally prefer to multi-task and be on-the-go.
Mobile applications are a great way to reach to your customers. Users who you can reach through mobile apps are more engaged and ready to communicate with your business as long as the channel of communication is accessible and they can find all the product info needed. For this, you need to handle your app process in the best way possible so that you are able to reach your targeted audience.
Mobile apps increase customer loyalty. Loyal customers tend to download free branded mobile apps more often and spend more time on them than on a mobile website. Because of the high capabilities of mobile phones these days, mobile applications perform really well and a good application can have a loyal customer for 2 to 3 years.
