The lines between digital, mobile, technology and apps are blurring in today’s world. We at Robosoft are keen followers of developments in this arena. Here’s a quick summary of what’s buzzing:
Microsoft launches Microsoft Teams
Slack, one of the popular apps for team communication, has a new competition in the market in the form of ‘Microsoft Teams’. Just a few days ago Microsoft launched the new chat tool for businesses that integrates seamlessly with its widely used office tools such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Skype. The app will be available to commercial customers of Office 365.
At present, Slack already caters to more than 4 million daily active users, but in a hurried response to the launch of Microsoft Teams, it published a full-page ad in the New York Times. From then on the ad has been the talk of the town and heavily criticized by many for being smarmy, arrogant and a mistake on Slack’s part.
Performance report of iMessage App Store
It’s been nearly a month since the iMessage App Store came into existence. And recently, Sensor Tower, examined the effect that the iOS games had on updating them with iMessage sticker packs. Gaming apps like Hello Kitty Jewel Town and Nom Cat that offered iMessage stickers were featured at the iMessage App Store during the launch. As a result, these apps experienced a significant week-over-week growth in download.
Source: Sensortower.com
From the report it’s also clear that stickers based on popular brands/IPs and trends (sports, cars, or retro graphics) are performing the best at the iMessage App Store.
New app subscription plans at Play Store
At its recent Playtime event held in San Francisco, Google announced some new strategies that app developers can take advantage of to drive user engagement and increase revenue. Some of these are:
- Offer new subscription promos – As subscriptions are the fastest growing business model on the Play Store, the company has now introduced a feature that allows developers to create an introductory price for new subscribers for a set period of time.
- Build anticipation with pre-registration – Apps that drive more than 30 million installs can let users pre-register for major upcoming Android titles.
In addition to this Google has also announced a new API that would help developers identify users who have requested for refunds. However, the program is currently in early beta.
App market expected to grow by 2020
Source: Appannie.com
From the past few months there was a considerable amount of foreboding on the dropping number of app downloads. However, the findings of market research firm App Annie put an end to all the unrest and fear among the app developers. The report says that the app market in itself is expected to grow 270% – from $70 billion in 2015 to $189 billion by 2020. Here are some more exciting numbers from the report:
- The time spent in apps have increased 114 percent from 2014 to 2016.
- By 2020, games will account for 55% of app store revenues.
- Time spent in shopping and transportation apps is expected to grow three-fold.
- By 2020, Asia will deliver more than $85 billion to publishers.
- For app publishers US market will remain the single largest market delivering $59 billion in 2020 compared to $54 billion from China.
