Over the last ten years, mobile has beaten up the desktop computer all around town.
One of the most publicised insights into the way mobile has infiltrated our everyday lives was published by Deloitte in its famous American survey of 2015. * It concluded that people checked their phone, on average, 46 times a day. For younger people, usage is even higher, and few could go more than 12 minutes without a check-in. Since then, mobile usage has continued to increase each year.
Apps are mobile’s happy space
The people making phones and computers have also noticed. Five years ago, a laptop in New Zealand may have cost you $2,000, and a phone $500.
Roll forward to 2020 and things have reversed, with top of the line phones at $2,000 out-pricing laptops. Mobile screens are getting bigger, mobiles are outselling personal computers five to one worldwide, and there are now more mobile phones than people in New Zealand. **
As well as becoming the device of choice, smartphone chips are now as fast as those in personal computers. And that power has turbocharged the shift from desktop applications to the mobile’s happy space: Apps.
Apps are where people using mobiles spend their time.
On a mobile, people have two choices: they can use browser-based services or download and use apps. The results are in for that too, and people spend more than 90% of their time in apps according to Yahoo’s analytics***, leaving a diminishing sliver of time for visiting the seminal world of websites with all their old-world functionality.
Go where people are spending their time
This shift is underway in New Zealand.
Pivoting to build apps is a new challenge for New Zealand businesses. Most have come on board with websites and added eCommerce as customer preferences have moved online. Clearly that wasn’t the end of the story, and a new spend is required to shift functionality to apps.
There is a race for the app real estate on mobiles …. with most people using around 40 apps regularly. +
While some of the big brands are generally there with their own apps, there is a race on for app real estate on people’s phones. While people have around 80 apps on their phone, most use only around 40 apps regularly. +
So there you have it - for your customers you want to be one of those 40 regularly used apps.
Wrighto Digital are building 50 apps for 50 companies …. for free. ++
For businesses where a screen is your business - games, social media, messaging, newspapers and magazines or streaming film, an app is your product, and you should be well underway with at least version one of your app.
For retailers of all shapes and sizes, the urgency to improve their online presence and to add mobile apps accelerates each year.
Other businesses will increasingly use apps as their customer service function.
Then there is the entire galaxy of business to business apps that replace the desktop-bound applications already in place (destined to become tomorrow’s legacy systems).
Build a business case for your app
We suggest you look at the rate of adoption of apps in your industry and start to explore how you can -
1. Connect and provide a better customer experience with an app.
2. Increase revenue with an app.
3. Cut costs using an app.
This simple analysis will begin to make clear the trade off in time, energy and capital required to make the shift, even as it becomes essential for many businesses in NZ to embark on a re-orientation towards mobile.
Taking action in 2020 … as 5g propels a new round of mobile innovation
In a shifting digital landscape, the rise of mobile apps as a new channel of choice is a reminder of the need for business owners to sit down and adjust their digital offer to continue to stay in tune with their current and future customers.
We expect a further round of app development to occur with the take up of 5g phones on a new network in 2020 which will provide extraordinary new capabilities (up to 100x current speeds) for mobile software and improved customer experiences.
Contact Wrighto Digital for a free chat about how apps may fit into your digital offer.
Footnotes
*. Deloitte 2015 Global Mobile Consumer Survey
** CIA World Factbook 2014
*** Yahoo (Flurry Analytics) 2018
+ App Annie 2017 Retrospective Report
++ Contact us to see how we can build you an iPhone app for your industry…. for no charge. Terms and conditions apply.