If we look at the growth in the mobile communication market retrospectively, then there are two clear-cut partitions; the Pre-Smartphone Era and the Post-Smartphone Era. Yes, the introductions of touch-screen phones transformed the industry like never before!

Statistics says that it is the market where you can’t make any business forecast based on the previous year’s data. Every year, there is something remarkably different and special. It results in a great movement in the business graphs.

Consumer statistics of the mobile apps show the similar trends. It is a market that clocked unbelievable growth year after year. Experts believe that the winning rally is going to continue for a long time.

Statistics with respect to the global scenario

Since the number of Smartphones is increasing worldwide, it is quite obvious that the mobile app penetration will also increase at a great rate. App stores of Android and Apple platforms have more than 4 Million apps in toto. It is expected that the number will rise with a great percentage in the coming years.

Not only the number of apps, but the app usage is also increasing year after year. App stores and App developers have understood that apps play a big role in the day-to-day life of consumers. Therefore, they come out with user-friendly and interesting apps.

Companies earn a lot of revenue by selling the apps. Whether it is a one-time cost of downloading or recurring usage cost; it adds to the top lines of app development companies.

A few demographics

To underline the enormous growth potential, we need to look into a few demographics.

• People in the age group of 18 to 24 are the heavy mobile users as compared to any other age group. It is followed by other groups such as 24 to 34, 35 to 44 and 45 to 54 years. People over the age of 55 years are the least users.
• According to estimates, there will be around 80 Billion Dollars of revenue generated by 270+ Billion downloads. Isn’t it unbelievable? In the last three years, the growth was 35 Billion USD in 2014, 45 Billion USD in 2015 and 60 Billion USD in 2017.
• Contradictory to the popular belief, women spend more time on the Internet using their Smartphones than men. Music sites share the largest chunk of the pie whereas news sites are the least.
• In men, the percentage of time spent in entertainment and news sites are the highest. Amongst men, a significant percentage if time is devoted to fitness sites as well.
• The number of times people use an app repeatedly is also increasing year after year. Typically, 40 percent of the times a user access same application in a month.

All these figures create a promising and encouraging picture for app developers. People get motivated to conceptualize, develop and market applications that are unique, useful and engaging.

A few things that will change the rules of the game

Looking at the stats, the future looks brilliant as far as app usage is concerned. However, the application development companies are supposed to keep a close watch on the changing trends in 2017. An application that fails to incorporate the dynamism will lose the market share quite fast. Hence, it is inevitable to get the pulse of the market.

1. Integration of Apps will dominate the marketplace. For example, a user navigating a roadmap would like to book a cab from the same app. Or a user comparing three or more health insurance plan would like to buy one without losing the navigation. Therefore, integration of multiple mobile apps will be a field that developers would be working in future.
2. Apps that can be worn will get immense popularity. As of today, they are pretty expensive. However, developers will be forced to bring down the prices to increase the usability. Since these wearable devices make the life quite simple, they become instantly popular.
3. Interactive apps with push notification will be in high demand. For example, in WhatsApp, you can reply to a post by clicking on the notification itself. There is no need to open the App. It not only saves your efforts but the battery usage also. More and more apps are including this feature in their products.
4. Artificial Reality and Virtual Reality are not just the topics of Hollywood movies but are the reality of life. Several business areas make use of it to make the apps interactive and useful. Trends indicate that the usage of AR and VR will increase manifold.
5. Internet of Things is the upcoming trend. Yes, it will be part and partial of our daily life in future. No wonder, it will be an inseparable part of the Mobile App world also. A lot of industries are experimenting with it, e.g. smart homes, security, education, and automobile. Hence, IOT will be the buzzword in 2017 and afterward.
6. UX will be the major differentiating elements amongst apps. Apps that will come out with more improved, innovative and practical UX will gain popularity. Users will not like apps with unpleasant or lull user experience. In short, developers will be forced to wear the shoes of users while designing apps.
7. Though cloud-based apps exist for quite some time, they didn’t get the popularity that they deserve. However, with the increasing role of apps that sync multiple devices, it becomes highly important to use cloud technology for better benefits. Experts see a bright future for cloud-based apps in 2017 and later.

It is quite obvious that the coming years will be highly interesting and full of excitement as far as mobile apps are concerned. Other important things such as increasing use of GPS will trigger a substantial growth in GPS-based apps in future. The market seems to get a tremendous momentum in the coming years.

As the apps become highly sophisticated and full of features, the supporting devices will also have to improve further. Without hardware support, no application can perform optimally. Thus, there will be an overall increase in the mobile market which is a good indication.