In my work with early-stage tech founders, I’ve come to realize there isn’t enough out there about mobile app trends.
Studies are largely commissioned by those who have extreme and obvious bias, primarily app analytics platforms, SaaS companies, and/or the VCs who invest in them. In my humble opinion, that makes them bullshit.
There are many basic questions I’ve wanted answered, but the available answers are either heavily-biased, unreliable, or unavailable.
Questions like:
- How many apps do people use each week?
- How much time are people spending on social media today?
- With social media platforms de-prioritizing (or de-indexing) news, how has that impacted news apps?
- Is it true that people won’t install new apps? How many “new apps” show up in user top tens?
The report that we’re preparing tackles three primary categories: total market analysis, mobile apps, and e-commerce.
Total Market Analysis
I was in a co-working space surrounded by early-stage tech founders the day the Apple Watch was announced. Everyone scrambled, eventually arriving at the same question: is this something we’re going to have to build for? It was tough to know who would buy a watch, what they would expect, and ultimately what they would use it for in their daily lives.
And there was no way to know.
Our Market Analysis starts at the top-level of our digital experiences including the things that will answer the modern versions of that same question. What is the appetite really like for augmented reality? Where do watches and virtual reality headsets go from here? Are glasses something we’re all going to have to build for?
We’ll also cover the boring stuff like device market share, operating system version adoption, an analysis of upgrade and update cycles, and insights on individuals with multiple devices.
Mobile App Statistics
We’ve all heard how hard it is to get users to install a mobile app but is that true? We’re taking a look at a full panel of mobile app behaviors including total apps installed, average engagements with each (like how many of those apps are used each day/week/month), how much time is spent with each app, and how various demographics relate to usage.
We’ll dig deeper, too. We’ve seen social media platforms de-prioritize news in 2023, including Facebook’s removal of news in some markets and the removal of link headlines on Twitter/X. What impact has that had on news apps (or sites)? Where has all of that traffic gone?
E-Commerce
A new direct-to-consumer shop presents a page that’s a little prettier or slicker every now and then, but the fact is the online part of e-commerce has looked the same for a very long time. The Amazon homepage has looked pretty much the same for 23 years.
There have been attempts at changing this experience but nothing has achieved traction in the American market. Not live-stream commerce, not shoppable social or advertising, not curated text messages.
The online shopping experience remains stagnant despite the fact there are more people shopping for more things online than ever before.
Why? We’ll try to find out.
Receive the 2024 Mobile App Usage Report
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