Today, apps are considered the life-line of any mobile platform. The more apps a mobile platform has, the more is it preferred by the users. But given the explosive growth of app stores, Gartner has forecasted in a recent report that in 2018, less than one in 10,000 apps will be successful.
The world of the apps is becoming increasingly saturated. Apple‘s App Store today has more than a whopping 1 million apps whereas Google’s Play Store is catching up fast. This means that in each category, users have an extensive range to choose from. Not to mention the fact that most of these apps are free, which is the way consumers prefer them.
In such cut-throat world of mobile apps, Gartner’s report that soon, a very small fraction of the apps will be profitable any more, is not very surprising. This is especially true because the costs of making an app financially successful have risen and new app developers simply can’t afford to pay for the ads and other marketing strategies to pitch their apps well enough.
Major development houses and brands, on the other hand, are able to devise entire strategies to promote their apps which inevitably brings significant financial success. According to vice president at Gartner, Ken Dulaney, “The vast number of mobile apps may imply that mobile is a new revenue stream that will bring riches to many. However, our analysis shows that most mobile applications are not generating profits.”
Another interesting bit from Gartner’s analysis is that it predicts a rise in browser-based HTML5 apps in the coming days. In the words of Dulaney, “Although more than 100 ‘platform independent’ development tools exist, most involve technical or commercial compromises, such as lock-in to relatively niche technologies and small vendors. This will drive increasing interest in HTML5 as a somewhat-standardized, widely available, platform-neutral delivery technology.”
Source: Gartner
Courtesy: Macstart
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