Oct 30, 2021
Is the age of Mobile Apps over?
Should we stop asking people to download our app?
The truth is, without mobile apps we may have never unlocked the potential smartphones carry today. Apple may have made smartphone practical for everyday use but it’s mobile app developers who, as Peter Thiel would say, brought the smartphone from 0 to 1.
Mobile app marketplaces open an opportunity for companies and other organizations to create pathways that connect their customers directly to their services. Today offering a mobile channel is one of the largest opportunities to capture users attention and retention.
Over the past five years something interesting has happened though, people stopped downloading mobile apps. In the American market users are downloading less apps then ever despite spending more time on their phones.
Comscore reported in 2019 that only 32.4% of smartphone users download 1 or more apps within a month. Said another way, 68.6% of users never download a single app. This is a continuation of a trend they also found in 2017 and 2014 which reported a decrease in app downloads. So what’s happening?
In their 2017 report Comscore sited a few reasons for this trend. “People say they remove apps because they’re just not using them, their interest has waned, their phone needed decluttering, or because they need more storage space.”
So the question becomes, is it worthwhile for companies to invest in producing their own mobile application?
The answer is no, unless it’s absolutely necessary for the functionality of your service or product. The other hurdle is promotion of an application. Thousands of new apps go live on app stores everyday and Heady recorded almost 40% of users discover news apps directly through the app store. Unless your organization has a fully fleshed out customer journey that involves an introduction to the mobile app, your app may not be discovered at all. If this is the chosen path be warned, it is very competitive market and should be seen as a long term play.
Another reason mobile applications have their limits is their ability to convert transactions.
A recent survey of smartphone users in the US conducted by Heady revealed that a shocking percentage of consumers, 78% to be exact, would refuse to complete a transaction that if they were required to download an app.
Think of the business lost simply because the pathway of choice is a mobile app. This kind of thinking can be especially dangerous for low communication industries whose products and services do not naturally create a back and forth cadence with customers.
Sectors like insurance, risk management services, or travel assistance companies can all benefit from a mobile pathway but their products only require user interaction when an issue arises.
The solution is simple. Expand how we think of mobile. At Aerogami, our development philosophy is to create mobile technology without requiring users to visit the app store. By starting with this simple idea, our products have been able to utilize the natural functionalities of smart phones today and create mobile pathways with technology already on phones.
Doing this increases engagement for our partners and the audiences they are trying to reach while also providing critical access to information when customers need it most.
Mobile accessibility is the future to brand loyalty and apps were the wheel that started the movement but now the question is, what technology will be the car?
