The Spectacular Rise of Apps – The impact so far and the revolution to arrive

The mobile phone has essentially overgrown its original usage – of being a medium of conversation with calls and messages. It has become a powerful device, even surpassing the age old computers in many ways. One can handle infinite number of operations right from his or her Smartphone with a flick of fingers, something that was the forte of seemingly powerful personal computers and laptops.

Think of watching movies or your favorite shows? Well, there are plenty of apps for that. Oh yes, there are such shows exclusively available on certain service providers’ apps! Bet you can’t beat that. Are you in the mood of playing games with your friends or with or against players scattered around the globe? It was never easier than today as Smartphone based games bundle spectacular features, online gaming modes and so on for you to enjoy. The list of activities that can be performed with the Smartphone apps goes on and on.

App Annie, a mobile app analytics firm, recently conducted a study regarding total time spent on apps across the world and the results were quite impressive. In the year 2016 Smartphone users spent 1.6 trillion hours in the year 2016 while accessing apps of various types. This figure was over 50% more than that logged in the previous year. 

On an average, Indian Smartphone users spent over four hours a day on mobile apps. This duration is essentially half of a normal working day. In fact, India is right there among the top mobile app markets today along with countries like South Korea, Japan, Brazil and Mexico. It has been pointed out that even the less active users would devote anywhere around 1.5 hours to 2.5 hours on mobile apps, which is quite substantial.

Which are the most sought after categories of mobile apps? Well, communication apps like Whatsapp, shopping apps and games are among the top few categories in terms of duration of usage. While South Koreans topped the list when it comes to using shopping apps, Indians were a close second by clocking an average of close to 90 minutes per month per user. When it comes to personal finance apps, Indians were placed at third by clocking 30 minutes per month, while users in South Korea were at the top (60 minutes) followed by those in Brazil (45 minutes). 

There is hardly anything under the sun that isn’t being bought and sold right now. A huge variety of products and services are on the offer thanks to ton loads of shopping apps and buying or selling was never this easy. This situation provides an excellent, though challenging, and opportunity for companies and marketers to reach out to global audience, market their products and services and beat their competitors. However, they need to present an excellent user interface and a satisfactory user experience to encourage them to keep coming back. It has been estimated that over the course of next five years, companies’ sales will increase by as much as 30 times thanks mainly to app based shopping!

Is the app based economy showing any signs of burning out? Not really and on the contrary, it is only going to pick up pace in the near as well as long term. It is being estimated that by the year 2021 users will clock 3.5 trillion hours, more than double the figures of the year 2016. One can safely say that app based economy is nowhere near its peak and we are only going to witness more and more growth without any signs of a slowdown.

An important point to note here is the adoption of Augmented Realty (AR) for mobile app development. If you are not living under a rock, you will be probably aware of the smash hit popularity of Pokemon Go across the globe. App users went crazy like anything and the app makers smartly capitalized on their successful adoption of latest technology. We are going to witness more such examples in coming times for sure.

Matt Miller, an industry analysis manager at App Annie and author of the above mentioned report, is bullish about the prospects of app based economy in the future. As per Matt, the app downloads increase rapidly during the initial stages of a market and the same is primarily fueled by the growth in mobile device adoption. With time and increased engagement with all sorts of apps, their reach is vastly expanded, thereby bringing in significant amounts of revenue for the owners.

Miller adds in his report, “This model not only explains the current state of the app economy, and how it got there, but it also points to the massive opportunity that still lies ahead. For example, in mature economies like Japan and the United States, downloads remain strong even as they transition to usage and revenue growth phases. In addition, these markets have plenty of runways for steady increase in the amount of time and money that users will spend in apps.” Overall, the app based economy has a bright future and too early to count it out. 

All in all, app based economy is here to stay and is going to amaze us in many more ways in the days to come. Whether you are a marketer or an end consumer, your hands are going to be full. Mix some Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Realty and Augmented Realty and the recipe is getting tastier!