Consumers can’t get enough of their favorite apps. Instead of sticking to one app for a certain function, research shows that consumers are increasingly using similar apps especially for communication and entertainment. Mobile users have also taken to wellness apps and a report says that category will reach 1 billion downloads this year. Get all the details on these reports in this week’s Mobile Monday!
Mobile Wellness Apps Forecasted to Exceed 1 Billion Downloads in 2021
With gyms closed and social distancing measures in place, mobile users sought out wellness tools online, leading to an inflection point for apps in that category. Sensor Tower’s Mobile Wellness Market Trends Report analyzed a wide range of wellness apps including fitness, spiritual well-being, and diet and nutrition. According to their analysis, The top 100 apps in this category exceeded 200 million installs for the first time ever in April 2020. Eventually, the apps reached 238 million globally that month and surpassed 1.2 billion for the year. The EMEA region was the largest market for wellness apps last year and accounted for approximately 36% of downloads from top apps in the category. APAC not far behind with 35% of installs for the category.
Although the hyper-growth of wellness app installs slowed since the surge in Q2, Sensor Tower estimates that the top apps will surpass 1 billion worldwide installs in 2021. That total would represent a 42% growth when compared to 730 million in 2019. In terms of subcategories, at-home workout apps have captured the largest share of first-time installs so far this year at more than 30%. Those apps also had the second highest highest year-over-year growth at 111%. Spiritual wellbeing apps, the subcategory that focuses on religious teachings and activities, had a more significant growth at 116% year-over-year.
Consumers Increasingly Choose to Use Apps With Similar Functions
In a report produced by App Annie and commissioned by Facebook, usage of apps with similar features were examined to understand the extent of switching between them. The report asserts that users regularly switch between apps with similar features, a trend that has been increasing over time in many cases. Due to lockdowns, the average mobile consumer has more apps downloaded on their mobile device than before. In H2 2020, the average consumer had 110 apps installed, an increase from 87 apps during the same period two years ago. On average, mobile users have ten communications apps installed on their phones in H2 2020 and spent 58 minutes per day in these apps.
The report revealed that consumers are using multiple similar apps from the entertainment and communication categories. Of the ten communication apps downloaded, five are actively used monthly to stay connected on average. App Annie also found that 9 out of 10 Facebook users also regularly use YouTube in a month. A similar usage trend can be found between TikTok and Snapchat, with 50% of TikTok users dividing almost an hour each day between them. Many consumers switch between communication and entertainment mobile apps daily. Seven out of ten Facebook Family of App (FoA) users of them use YouTube every day. Furthermore, 80% of people that use both FoA and Google Messages in a month also use them daily.
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