Sara Kurczyńska
Andrzej Puczyk
Mobile apps downloads
First, take a look at the chart below. It shows a steady 35% growth of app store downloads worldwide, fueled by steep market development in China and India. And that’s not all. The forecasts from the “State of Mobile 2019” report show that by 2022, the number of mobile apps downloaded every year will amount to 258 billion.
Source: “State of Mobile” 2019, App Annie
Consumer spending on mobile apps
But the number of downloaded mobile apps doesn’t show the whole picture. Maybe these downloads are generated by some bots or Google / Apple employees? Well… if you think like that, take a look at another chart. It shows the worldwide consumer spending on mobile apps, without spending on m-commerce or in-app advertising. You can easily spot that till 2022 it should grow by around 50%, surpassing the threshold of 150 billion USD.
Source: Statista.com
Consumer spending by country
As you can see in the chart above, consumer spending on mobile apps in the coming years will be growing throughout all of the regions – APAC, EMEA, Americas. But which country was the leader in terms of consumer spending growth over the last 2 years? If you thought about the US, think twice. The title goes China which since 2016 has grown 2 times faster than the US.
Source: “State of Mobile” 2019, App Annie
Benefits of a mobile app
So why exactly are mobile apps still so popular? Speaking bluntly, mobile apps offer a lot more value than just a regular website.
1) High performance
First of all, mobile apps perform much better in terms of speed and reliability. They are better optimized in terms of usage of mobile hardware and operating system. In comparison, websites can be considered a sort of “one-size-fits-all” solution. They have to work on a lot of various devices in a lot of contexts. As a result, you have to go on some compromises in terms of efficiency.
2) Native functions
Another thing is the access to native functions of the phone which is simply non-existent on websites. Think about all of the services and features you can develop based on the access to native functions like a phone camera or contact book. Not talking about the push notifications – one of the best ways to keep in touch with the users of your app and conduct marketing campaigns.
3) Brand visibility
If you are reading this post, you certainly already have a mobile phone with a couple of mobile apps. So how did you find them? Via an app store, right? Google Play (for Android) and Apple App Store (for iOS) are platforms you can use not only to show your app to the public but to increase the visibility of your brand. By publishing your app there, you can present your brand and products to millions of people free of charge.
The cost of a mobile app development
So how much do I have to spend to get a mobile app, you may ask? Well, everything depends on your specific needs. If you are just building a regular mobile app without a lot of components in the backend to integrate the cost should be relatively low. In this case, consider looking for your mobile app developer on websites like Upwork.
But even if you are in charge of a large enterprise-grade mobile project, the costs should not kill you if you use the right solutions available on the market. For example, one of our products may help you accelerate the development of your mobile app and save hundreds of man-days with no compromises on security and functionality. How cool is that?
So, are you ready to join the mobile revolution?
In case you liked our article, take a look at some of the other pieces we wrote!
