Tag Archives: Android applications

Strong Growth For Mobile App Market Predicted

According to a new report from Strategy Analytics, the mobile application and mobile application development market can look forward to big growth over the next four years. The firm predicts strong growth from $21.4 Billion in 2013 to $60 Billion in 2018.

“In terms of downloads,” David MacQueen, Executive Director, Apps and Media Research states, “Google Play overtook Apple App Store in 2012, but iOS remains ahead in terms of revenue. We anticipate that Google Play will finally overtake the Apple App Store in terms of revenues in 2016.”

When we look at the different platforms, “Apple’s App Store and Google Play will continue to be the dominant distribution channels, but Windows Phone Store and Amazon Appstore are showing strong growth in the battle for third place,” a report summary reads.

While Android and iOS will continue to dominate, Windows Phone appears to be the operating system on the rise as IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker forecasts growth in Windows Phone’s global market share from 3.9% this year to 7% in 2018.

“We have seen a definite uptick in the number of companies asking us to build apps for the Windows Mobile platform,” states Kimber Johnson, Managing Director, Pacific App Design, “While it definitely has been a two platform race the past couple years, the growth Windows Mobile is making is translating into more brands asking us to build apps for the platform.”

Smartphone Shipments At Record New Level

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Based on figures from a new report from IDC, the global smartphone market pushed to new heights last quarter. In the 2nd quarter of this 2014, over 300 million units were shipped for the first time ever. This sets a new record for number of smartphones shipped in a quarter, according to IDC.

More precisely, smartphone manufacturers shipped a total of 301.3 million smartphones worldwide in the 2nd quarter of 2014, this number is up 25 percent over the number of units shipped in the 2nd quarter of 2013. “Android has been reaping huge gains within emerging markets,” says Ramon Llamas, Research Manager with IDC’s Mobile Phone team.

Of particular note to businesses interested in mobile application development for their business, Android and iOS saw their combined market share swell to 96 percent for the quarter, continuing to squeeze out all competitors.

“We are seeing fewer businesses choosing to create applications for platforms other than Android and iOS,” states Kimber Johnson, Managing Director of Pacific App Design. “In their place, we have been seeing a growing number of requests involving integrating Android and iOS applications with external devices such as sensors or appliances and expanding the uses of these two operating systems.”

Creating Superior User Experiences

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User experience is of paramount importance to today’s consumers, so making it easy for them to get the information they need or want is a critical part of today’s mobile experience. If your mobile application‘s users can’t easily find what they are looking for, they will quickly abandon your mobile application. If you offer a positive user experience, making it easy and intuitive for users to navigate your application and find what they are looking for, your brand can engage and potentially convert a greater volume of shoppers or develop a solid user base. There are huge advantages to developing applications with a sound usability strategy and a big risk that if you do not you will be quickly turning away potential customers.

When it comes to retail or online brands, offering access to immediate customer support through tools like mobile chat, brands can quickly and effectively engage and potentially convert a high volume of consumers. There is a big advantage to offering real-time, personalized assistance at a customer’s fingertips. These advantages only just start with increased conversion ratios and go on to include items like reducing overall support costs.

Another key area is personalization. Mobile users generally don’t have the patience to sift through irrelevant information on a mobile application. Therefore it is best to make sure that content is based on the consumer’s location, preferences and history. Making your users dig for relevant info will just send consumers to your competition.

With the amount of time and money that consumers are spending on mobile growing, it is more important that ever to offer well thought out consumer experiences. Better user experiences are helping to fuel the growth of mobile and those that are not offering quality experiences will quickly find that users are flocking to those that are offering what consumers expect.

Let Customers Be Able to Find You via Mobile Devices

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In the last few years we are seeing people utilizing computing power in a vastly different way with smart phones and tablets often becoming the device of choice over laptops and desktop computers. Many small business have discovered that by being easy to find on these devices they have been able to increase sales and growth.

No longer can businesses just put up a web site and expect that to be enough. A business needs to be able to be found in a wide variety of places to insure that customers can find them where ever they are looking. Whether its via mobile web site, traditional web sites, mobile applications (including iPhone and Android apps) or social media, your business needs to have an established presence.

Here are some key items to think about regarding improving your presence in these mediums:

Mobile Web Sites: The number of searches completed on mobile devices has climbed 20% in the last year. Business owners without mobile web sites are missing out on a significant amount of searching. According to Nielsen, those who use mobile devices to search for you are statistically more likely to follow up on the search. 55% of mobile searches result in a purchase. A survey by comScore has revealed that searches done on mobile devices are much more likely to result in a sale than searches done on computers.

Mobile Applications: Mobile apps provide consumers a regular way to keep contact with your business. Applications are fantastic at deepening markets and businesses need to provide content that keeps loyal customers coming back. Is your app a one shot deal or something that consumers want to keep readily available to visit? Do you provide something of value to those that have downloaded your app? Apps that users return to over and over help generate repeat business at a tremendous rate.

Social Media: About 40% of those surveyed use social media to interact with businesses. This is a huge number of people that your business could reach. Social media outlets are well formulated to the mobile environment and a great way for consumers to find you via their mobile devices.

It is essential for your business that you and your products are readily findable on mobile devices. Once consumers get to your mobile site or app, make it easy for them to find most relevant information about your business: your address, phone number, and hours. This is important with social media as well. Make it easy to find your physical location on your digital presence.

Savvy businesses are embracing these trends and leveraging the power of mobile to propel growth.