The mobile app market will see more growth over the next four years than it has since its inception eight years ago, according to new research from Ovum.
Additionally, more than three times as much revenue will be made between 2016 and 2020 than was generated between 2008 and 2015. However, app saturation and increasing user acquisition costs in mature markets, such as the US and Western Europe, will lead to a noticeable deceleration in download volumes through 2020.
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Global app revenue will more than double over the next four years. App revenue will increase over the period between 2015 and 2020 at a rate 2.2 times faster than it grew last year. The market is expected to grow to more than $79 billion by 2020, up from $36 billion in 2015.
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App download volumes will also increase, but at a slower pace. Global download volumes will grow 1.8 times over the same period reaching 378 billion downloads in 2020, up from 211 billion in 2015.
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Emerging markets will be key over the forecast period, driving the sharpest growth rate over the next five years in terms of both app downloads and revenue. In particular, as technology in markets catch up to developed countries, they will register a much greater growth rate in terms of revenue per app download. Nevertheless, mature markets will continue to capture the greatest share of app revenue through the forecast period.
Lastly, China’s quickly maturing app market, which accounts for more than half of all app downloads globally, will soon become of top-grossing market in terms of revenue. China’s massive mobile gaming industry as well as its growing middle class will help the country drive up app downloads and revenue.
App revenue will become increasingly important as hardware sales struggle in the coming years. The global smartphone market is expected to slow considerably over the next few years. Despite a record-setting holiday quarter, 2015 was likely the last year of double-digit growth for smartphone shipments.
Mature markets were at the heart of this year’s deceleration. Adoption has reached new highs in key markets in the United States, Europe, and China. The pool of first-time buyers in these countries is shrinking rapidly, and sales are now primarily coming from phone upgrades.
Meanwhile, emerging markets will continue to see robust shipment growth. India and Indonesia, in particular, will help fuel a large share of the shipments growth within the global smartphone market over the next few years.
Will McKitterick, senior research analyst at BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on smartphones by country that forecasts the market through 2021 to reflect slower, stabilizing growth in the long term.
Here are some key points from the report:
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The global smartphone market is still growing at a steady pace due to more widespread adoption in emerging markets. We estimate the global market will hit about 2.1 billion units shipped in 2021.
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Shipments growth over the past few years hasbeen driven by the falling price of smartphones, which has made handsets more accessible in emerging markets. The average selling price of a smartphone in India nearly halved between 2010 and 2015.
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With relatively low smartphone penetration, we forecast Indian smartphone shipments to grow rapidly over the next five years. Nevertheless, India has a long way to go before it surpasses China as the world’s leading market for smart handsets. India is estimated to account for roughly 10% of the global smartphone market in 2016, considerably less than China’s 30% share.
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The global platform wars are over, even as smartphone adoption continues to rise across various markets worldwide. Android and iOS are estimated to account for 97.3% of global platform market share in 2015, compared to 96.3% last year
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Apple closed the year with another strong quarter on the back of its iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus launches. Still, the vendor saw a slight decline in YoY growth of its share of the market in the face of stiff competition from Samsung and Chinese vendors such as Huawei.
Business Insider