India becomes the fastest-growing app market according to Adjust’s growth score.
Smartphone applications are an integral part of people’s daily lives. In 2020, eMarketer predictedOpens a new window that adult smartphone users would spend four hours a day using mobile internet. Out of that, 88% of the time would be spent on mobile apps. This means that businesses have a massive potential for companies to market their apps. However, it is also true that most mobile app users churn within a short period. Understanding the mobile app trends, how people use them, and how to attract and engage more users can help app marketers shape their mobile app strategy.
Adjust, an app marketing platform, and Facebook recently released The Mobile App Growth ReportOpens a new window on the mobile app economy’s growth. The report provides insights into the growth of mobile apps in 2020, global and vertical trends, and an analysis of a few assumptions of growth marketing. The report also provides a global map highlighting app trends outside the mature markets, helping marketers understand where they can find the highest growth potential.
Also read: Calling All Mobile Marketers: Beat App Fatigue With These 3 Savvy Strategies
Here are a few key insights and highlights from the report:
India Ranks the Highest Growth Region
Growth Score by country
Source: Adjust The Mobile App Growth Report Opens a new window
According to Adjust’s Growth Map, Asia Pacific (APAC), Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and South America witnessed the strongest growth. India, which was in the middle of the growth table according to the last year’s report, became the fastest-growing region this year. As per the Mobile Marketing Association India figures, the country has more than 700 million unique mobile phone subscribers. With a vast market and ever-increasing mobile penetration, both home-grown and international brands have ample growth opportunities.
The top app verticals in the country were education (over 60%), business (approx. 60%), F&B (approx. 55%), and social (over 50%). Interestingly, ecommerce apps came last at a little over 15%.
Further, according to the report, South East Asia had a few high-growth countries, including the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand. These countries emerged as dynamic markets in the region.
In the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, the fastest-growing mobile market was the U.K. The fastest-growing vertical was gaming, followed by education, lifestyle, and health. F&B apps ranked the lowest. Entertainment and social apps showed signs of reaching market saturation. The report found an impact of COVID-19 on all fast-growing verticals, leading to a strong performance.
For the U.S., the trends looked like the U.K. The gaming vertical ranked the highest on Adjust’s growth score, followed by educational and health apps. Interestingly, travel apps performed well, too. F&B performed last, like the EMEA region.
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Gaming Apps Witness the Highest Growth
As already seen, gaming was the fastest-growing vertical across geographical regions and scored close to 50 on Adjust’s growth score. This was primarily due to the people looking for joy, connection, and escapism during the testing times. Further, the trend continued to accelerate from 2019, with business models, such as hypercasual, being rewarded. In terms of countries that ranked the highest in this vertical, Argentina ranked first, followed by Vietnam, Brazil, China, and Mexico. Growing urban populations and increased accessibility were trends that saw rapid mobile development in Latin America (LATAM).
While Argentina jumped from third in 2019 to the top position in 2020, Vietnam jumped by four positions. Further, China and Vietnam are invested in the mobile-first mindset. Both countries are also home to apps that are good with ad monetization.
Growth verticals
Source: Adjust The Mobile App Growth Report Opens a new window
Other verticals performed differently in various geographical regions. However, put together, business (approx 35) and entertainment (over 30) verticals performed well after gaming. Ecommerce saw a considerable boost in 2020, with South Korea leading the way, followed by Vietnam, Myanmar, Egypt, and China.
Entertainment saw massive growth primarily as consumers looked for ways to stay entertained. Subscription was the major trend in entertainment apps. The leading markets in entertainment apps were China, India, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE.
App Portfolio Does Not Mean Higher Growth
For many verticals, the more the number of apps by a single developer, the more the opportunities to cross-promote. But does this lead to a higher growth score?
Comparing the gaming and entertainment verticals, Adjust found no direct relationship between the number of apps and growth. While more apps meant better growth for gaming, having fewer apps meant more growth for the entertainment vertical.
Further, Adjust wanted to see how often successful apps across different verticals release updates. For this, the company took apps released in 2018. The analysis found that gaming had the lowest number of active apps (43%) 24 months after their release. On the other hand, fintech and ecommerce apps stayed active at a very high rate (78% and 72%, respectively).
Lastly, the report analyzed how many updates developers had to release to stay active. The report found that initially, developers released updates frequently. However, as months passed by, the updates became less frequent. The average number of updates for an active app was three per month.
Also read: 2021 Will Be the Year of Mobile Apps – Go Forth and Build Yours
Key Takeaways.
Adjust’s latest report shows that different regions and countries are emerging as hotspots for mobile apps. Hence, it is advisable for mobile app marketers to keep track of where their potential user base is growing, as investing there can lead to great results. The report also shows that while the big numbers are coming from South East Asia and LATAM, developed and mature regions have room for further growth. Finally, if the vertical is ecommerce or financial, marketers are in for the long-haul, as these apps have a longer lifecycle. However, developers should update them frequently to stay relevant.