A mobile application or app is a computer programme designed to run on smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile gadgets. Mobile apps were originally designed for general information retrieval such as emails, contacts, calendars, and stock market and productivity. Rising popularity of mobile apps enhanced its adoption into other categories, such as mobile gaming, social networking, e-book reading and entertainment, lifestyle, GPS (Global Positioning System) and location based navigation services, factory automation, banking, order-tracking and mobile medical apps. In addition, mobile apps help end-users to search for information and download data by connecting to the internet. Mobile app providers need to consider the constraints and features before developing apps that can run on mobiles because smartphones and tablets run on battery and have less powerful processors as compared to personal computers.
The mobile app report contains the global scenario of this market discussing a detailed overview and market figures. The research report analyses the industry growth rate, capacity and structure. The report analyses the historical data and forecasts the mobile app market size along with key factors driving and restraining the market growth.
The mobile app market can be segmented into three major types, viz. applications, store type and geography. The mobile app market can be segmented on the basis of applications into eight major categories – social networking, online books, business &finance, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, navigation and others (productivity and utilities). On the basis of store type, the mobile app market can be segmented into two major categories, third party stores (managed by mobile device manufacturers, operators and operating system developers) and native stores. The mobile app market can also be segmented on the basis of major geographies such as North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Asia-Pacific, Japan, Eastern Europe, and Middle East & Africa.
The mobile app market across the globe is a multi-billion dollar market and is anticipated to exhibit a substantial growth in CAGR, from 2014 to 2020. There is a significant increase in the mobile app market because of increasing number of smartphone users and low cost of data usage. The mobile app market has a huge scope in emerging economies of Asia-Pacific region like China and India who are likely to lead the mobile app market due to a growing demand for mobile gaming and internet subscription.
The key drivers of this market include proliferation of smartphones, increased mobile data subscriptions, introduction of programmes by enterprises, such as Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) and deployment of MDM (mobile device management) solutions, rapid development of gaming industry, mobile advertising and low cost of data usage.. The major restraint to this market is lack of standardized business applications.
Some of the key players in the mobile app market are Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Nokia Ovi Store, China Mobile Ltd., Get Jar, Google Inc., Palm Inc., LG Mobile, Microsoft Inc., NTT DoCoMo Inc., Hand mark, Pocket Gear, Hand ster Inc., Research in Motion (RIM) and Mplayit among others. Key participants in the mobile application market focus on introducing advanced, user-friendly and cost-effective applications with additional features to enhance customer experience. In addition, major players follow pre-launch strategies which include creation of social media accounts to enhance visibility and effectiveness, and application store optimization (ASO) to improve visibility of mobile apps in app stores.