The Boom in Mobile App Industry During COVID-19 Pandemic
Reading Time: 7 minutes
The mobile app industry has seen a tremendous surge in past one year, which had never been so, earlier. No other industry has ever been able to capitalize the extent of opportunities, to this extent. The pandemic at one point got every other industry gasping for survival, while on the other hand has opened the gates to many opportunities for some.
Why not start looking forward to them now?
The Burgeoning Mobile App Market
Of course, the pandemic has slowed down the pace of any business, but the mobile app development industry has swelled up owing to sudden increase in demand for mobile apps, ever since the outbreak happened. According to a report by SensorTower, the Covid-19 pandemic has led to the 52% increase in data usage due to the increased downloading of mobile applications.
Well, the credit for these growing opportunities again goes to the consumers only, whose behavior changed as an impact of the lockdowns and quarantines due to the pandemic. These opportunities are seen knocking at the doors of mobile app industry. With enormous purposes these apps serve, like ordering food to managing business from home, or monitoring everything from home, they have become part and parcel of almost everything that you come across in your day-to-day life. Every day numerous apps are getting downloaded and installed, for the length of role that they play in our lives, in such hard times; as many apps are being developed also. Be it any industry, thousands of apps have been developed pertaining to a variety of roles that they play.
In past one year, the mobile app industry has seen a huge increase in the number of apps as well as app users.
In such a scenario, knowing about the status of mobile apps in all the industries, certainly helps the mobile app developers to determine the industry they need to develop mobile apps for, where they would get a good response.
Let’s dive-in to learn about how has the mobile app industry been performing in some major industries.
Food & Grocery Industry
While the pandemic tightened its grip over the retail industry, the increased resourcefulness in delivery service led by a plethora of delivery apps, was the silver lining amidst the dark clouds. Within a span of months, the reliance on these apps grew manifold, as they got tremendous downloads and installations. These apps took the food and grocery business to new heights.
As reported by a source, Amazon and Walmart have got maximum downloads in the US in 2020, with Amazon hitting whopping 41 million and Walmart touching the 34 million milestone.
Apart from Amazon and Walmart, Instacart, Shipt and Target have also received increased downloads.
News/Media Industry
COVID-19 pandemic has led to a havoc in the entire world, with new things pertaining to the numbers of positive cases, casualties, vaccination programs, coming up every now and then. The curiosity levels of the people always stay up, as a result of which they keep a constant tab on the latest news, which has escalated the downloading of news applications in mobile phones. Newsbreak and SmartNews are the popular news apps that have been increasingly downloaded all over the US.
Following is a graph showing the daily downloads of these two news apps worldwide between Feb 1 and March 20, 2020.
Source: Hyperlink Infosystem
Though, some fluctuations have been observed in the download frequency of Washington Post. The apps belonging to the popular news networks including CNN and Fox News have also received mixed response in the form of daily downloads.
Corporate Industry
To survive through the pandemic, it is very crucial for corporates to keep going, come what may. There is a huge role of communication and coordination within a corporate, which could have become quite a challenge, hadn’t the corporate meeting apps like Teams, GoToMeetings, Slack, or Skype for Business been there.
With rapidly growing popularity of these apps, their download pattern has also been taking a steep rise.
Presented below is the graphical depiction of the usage of GotoMeeting app. You can see the quick climb in its usage pattern during 2020.
Source: Built With
The remote working trend led to the sheer dependency of corporates over these apps. This is how the teammates who would have worked together always, come together online again, to coordinate, share their ideas, and get in synch with each other for complete business management, remotely.
Healthcare Industry
Well, health-based apps have also become the most downloaded apps, ever since the coronavirus pandemic had struck. In such a grave situation where it has been extremely difficult to seek a doctor’s appointment, the option of online consultations came to the rescue. Thanks to these health apps that even allow you to order the medicines or medicinal equipment, without having to go out in such a vulnerable situation, and get the right at their doorstep.
Presented below is the success chart of top health and fitness apps that have been making waves in the Google Play Store since 2021, in the US.
Source: Statista
ECommerce Industry
The eCommerce apps and many grocery delivery apps are also being downloaded with a substantial increase in the rate. The success of these apps lies behind their tremendous role-play in meeting the daily needs of consumers, who do not have to bear the fear of exposure to the deadly infection, and are now able to order all they want, right from their safe abode. Whether it is about grocery, food, clothing or any other item that you would find in a supermarket, you can conveniently buy them all.
Education Industry
With schools, colleges and all other educational institutions being closed as a measure to stop the spread of infection, it has become mandatory for all of them to conduct online sessions through smart e-learning or educational apps.
Their growing popularity and demand have made them the wannabe apps, as they not just keep the teaching pattern stay strong, but even make it more innovative.
The increasing demand of these apps clearly indicates that more of them need to be up in the app market. Developers, are you listening?
Conclusion
It is quite overwhelming to realize how much are these apps downloaded, and stay in demand, with grocery and food delivery apps, healthcare and educational apps topping the charts.
They can certainly consider the industries where app market is booming. But, what if they start thinking the other way round? Yes, adopting a no-mob mentality, it may be even wiser for them to build apps for the industry that is currently in an inactive state, such as the travel industry. This is the industry for which no apps must be getting created by now, and by the time, things get back to normal and the industry starts breathing back again, not many but your app will already be there to cater to the growing demands. Other such industries are hospitality and airline industry.
Whatever industry any app pertains to, it has to be developed with utmost expertise and finesse, so that it performs, be it any scenario.
With mobile app development being one of our areas of specialization, we develop highly functional and performance-oriented apps.
To know about our mobile app development services, click here.
