The mobile apps industry is evolving fast, with Apple and Google now offering more than 700,000 mobile applications each in their respective online stores. According to The New York Times, “the mobile industry is now valued at more than $1.6 trillion. It’s expected to spike to a multi-trillion dollar industry in the next ten years”.
The app market has a lot of competition and is becoming a mature, developed industry, with enormously increased commoditization as compared to its early days. Due to the competition in the market, mobile app developers are focusing more on those apps that add value. Both Google & Apple have tightened their rules & regulations while downloading a particular app in order to avoid scams and make it easy for consumers. At the same time, ecommerce websites are focusing more on Mobile Commerce (m-commerce). The m-commerce technology is evolving and innovations are being developed to improve efficiency, convenience and cost effectiveness. This will help in areas including online banking, inventory, paperless inventory, and m-payments that give entrepreneurs new and inventive ways to use digital means for transacting business. Overall, this is an appealing playing field for the Small & Medium Business (SMB) community.
Leading ecommerce websites such as eBay and Amazon.com have their own mobile apps to leverage this fast growing industry. Both Apple iOS and Android are already market leaders in delivering content and services over mobile phones using them with the iTunes and Google Play type apps. Google, Groupon, Craigslist, eBay are some of the most visited websites by smartphone users.
comScore in its latest Mobile App Report, tracks 25 most popular apps by unique visitors in the United States. These include:
1) Facebook
2) YouTube
3) Google Play,
4) Google Search
5) Pandora
6) Google Maps
7) Gmail
8) Instagram
9) Apple Maps
10) Yahoo Stocks
11) iTunes Radio/iCloud
12) Facebook Messenger
13) Yahoo Weather Widget
14) Twitter
15) The Weather Channel
16) Google+
17) NetFlix
18) Snapchat
19) Amazon Mobile
20) Pinterest
21) eBay
22) Skype
23) Shazam
24) Yahoo Mail
25) Kick Messenger
There are some other apps also which are loved and downloaded by users around the globe which include WhatsApp, WeChat, Flicker, Yelp, Vine & more.
The apps industry “is like cars at the turn of the last century,” said Simon Khalaf, chief executive of mobile analytics firm Flurry Inc. “You see the growth of roads and know they’re going to be big. But it is still early days.”
The mobile app boom has spread to markets in Japan, China and South Korea too. That has led to some mobile apps like social-networking service NHN Corp.’s Line leapfrogging U.S. app-makers in great revenue by selling virtual items like stickers. It may be noted that great mobile boom is changing the ways that small and large businesses were dealing with. A recent survey commissioned by AT&T and the Small Business & Entrepreneurship (SBE) Council found that small business owners save some $67.5 billion a year by using mobile apps, tablets, and smartphones in their day-to-day business activities. “Apps offer small businesses a means to increase revenues and visibility, as well as enhance the customer experience,” Marla Tabaka explains in Inc. “Whether you own a restaurant, offer a service, write a blog, run events, or manage a DIY platform, you can grow your business just by adding an app.”
It is important to mention here Mobile app revenue now accounts for 68% of mobile monetization, making it great opportunity for online marketers. Gartner predicts that there will be increase of 62% this year to $25 billion global revenue from app stores.