Mobile market science: Rethinking the numbers game and shifting to personalisation

Insights from the IDC revealed that mobile app installs will surpass the 210 billion mark valued at an estimated $57 billion by 2020. According to the premier market intelligence company, these numbers are based on its data of about 156 billion mobile applications installed in 2015, which consequently generated $34.2 billion in revenue

Beyond these impressive figures, the IDC forecasts that both app install volumes and direct revenue will linger a little bit more in an unhurried trend within the next five years. Still, both mobile app measures will experience annual growth but will only fall into a single digit trend due to market maturation.

Mobile app installs are the number of unique user downloads of an app whether downloaded directly from the site or through an ad button. Revenue, on the other hand, is the amount of money generated by marketers either from ads or paid installs. These figures are important for marketers because they serve as measures to understand consumer behaviour.

The IDC further disclosed figures from two huge mobile app market ecosystems, Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store. In 2015, Apple’s App Store recorded a 36 percent year-over-year increase, capturing nearly 58 percent of global direct app revenues, the IDC said. On the other hand, Google’s Play Store covered only 36 percent in direct app revenues.

Apple’s share of the global app install volume was 8 percent less than the past year, totalling only 15 percent in 2016. Google’s Play Store enjoyed 60 percent of install volumes. Observations from industry experts suggest that Apple will continue to dominate in the revenue generation race, while both industry giants are more than equipped to gain more developers in their own ways.

However, are these numbers enough to draw more attention to the usability, and relevance of the mobile app to its target consumers?

"While they provide a convenient measure of the mobile app economy and its beneficiaries, we caution that preoccupation with download/install volumes and associated direct revenue may miss the thrust of changes in the mobile marketplace," Research Vice President for Mobile and Connected Platforms John Jackson told IDC.

An Applift blog says it is time to refocus and think less about installs. Rather, marketers should focus more on retention.

This situation better equates with that of shoppers who want to have more personalised and easy shopping experience. An eMarketer article discussed this idea saying that marketers have figured out what shoppers, want — it’s the overall shopping experience. The most important thing for any consumer is how easy and comfortable the shopping experience has been.

Mobile experts from the AppTamin blog agree that retention and personalisation are the most important measurement of an app’s success. Retention becomes a useful marketing tool that allows marketers to identify whether their apps are working and if it engages users to utilise their apps more while personalisation drives users to continually patronise a mobile app.

This marketing technique is widely utilised by a mobile business and finance news app, Born2Invest . The mobile app offers a unique and relevant service to anyone, whether looking for business news about stocks, finance, science or technology. CEO and founder Dom Einhorn believes that that best way to differentiate the mobile app from others in the market is its ability to lets readers know that they are important by publishing carefully curated news in their native tongue. The app is currently available in 24 languages including Malay, Serbian, Vietnamese, and Thai.

“The biggest edge human curators have over machines at this point is that they are simply better at determining what another human may find useful and engaging,” said Einhorn in an exclusive interview.

Marketers believe that the key to an app’s success relies on numbers and estimates, but there are those who go beyond numbers. These marketers believe that the key to a successful and well-patronized app is its ability to understand consumer’s needs and wants and consequently respond to these factors.