There are billions of apps in the app store occupying terabytes of data but it’s almost impossible for a mobile user to install even 1% of those. A single user need not use so many apps. And that goes for the apps that are used by users on a daily basis. We are trying to find out that why is it so that only 5% of the apps are used while the remaining are not actively utilized or used in any manner?
On a general account a user does not really install more than 50-60 apps in their Smartphone. Imagine yourself as the user in this case. How many apps do you regularly use? Obviously not more than 3-4 apps everyday!
This poses a serious question to those who want to write success in the app store because only 5% of apps are too small for a developer to get lucky. So what makes us use only some of the applications while most of the other applications remains passively used or not used at all?
Source: GlobalWebIndex
Now if we are looking into the frequency of usage of particular apps, let’s look into the leading apps here. Most of the apps in the free category are games, utility, entertainment, news, messaging or social apps. Hence they all need to be accessed frequently or a number of times a day at least. It clearly suggests that the content that is consumed also holds the key to the frequency of usage of any application.
This is one of the main reasons that out of all these categories games are released with multiple versions after the success of the first while other app categories only receive timely updates with the UI. This is because a game app comes with an expiry date. Once all the levels are done, the app developer needs to develop the next version to make sure that usage frequency to the app is maintained. If an app development company can do that it remains in the 5% of the apps or goes down to the remaining 95%.
Now let us come to some other categories of apps such as productivity, medical, health and fitness etc. These app categories are less general than social or entertainment apps. These apps need purpose of the user to be used. In short it needs efforts to utilize these apps which might not follow the periodic trends of a social, game or entertainment app. It has always been seen that users using running or fitness apps tend to passively use their applications. Hence these apps start off with good usage stats but eventually become dead and pushed down to the remaining 95% of the apps.
Productivity apps follow the same pattern. Think about Evernote or any note taking application. How many times as a user did you use a productivity app. No wonders that these apps vouch towards utility quotient with apps so that they have a dedicated segment of users to use them in periodic intervals, if not frequently. You might not be the only person who uses these apps once in a while.
Revolutionary has to become evolutionary
We have already discussed the stage at which the touch screen devices lie at this moment of time. They could evolve further to gain more access to enterprise usage. If that happens, then a lot of utility based apps can find a potential user base for enterprise app usage. However the 5% figure of frequently used apps won’t change further but a potential segment of enterprise apps will definitely flourish.
No matter if enterprise apps could seriously make it to touch screens and compete MS’s dominance of legacy software or not. What would remain constant is our nature of using software. The summation of Human behaviour of all app users will tend to rollback or (may be) standardize towards a normal distribution. In that case, the apps that fulfills or compliments the behaviour the most basic aspect of the user behaviour will be most frequently used while the other that doesn’t’ won’t make it big.
Are you trying to fit into the 5% of that lot??
For more information on App versus Mobile Web, or if you are considering getting an app designed and developed, please contact MODISclub for more advice.
Source: OpenXcell
