Mr Branding: These App Niches Are the Most Resilient to Economic Headwinds

Saturday, December 10, 2022

These App Niches Are the Most Resilient to Economic Headwinds

Inflation as well as supply chain disruptions have caused the formation of economic headwinds which are making it harder for stalwart industries to survive than might have been the case otherwise. In spite of the fact that this is the case, some apps in the mobile market have managed to prove resilient to the effects of inflation and other economic factors, and they are proving that there are still ways in which companies can remain profitable in these trying times.

The mobile market has been especially good at holding the gains that were obtained back in 2020, and with all of that having been said and now out of the way it is important to note that time spent on these apps is increasing, as per DataAI. There has been an 11% increase in average time spent on apps by consumers year over year, and this provides some hope for the future and proves that the app economy still has a lot of room that it can naturally grow into.

Users now spend a whopping 2 trillion hours scrolling through Android apps alone, and download numbers also broke all records with all things having been considered and taken into account. Downloads across both the iOS App Store and the Android Play Store saw a 13% increase year over year to reach 74.4 billion for 2022.

However, revenues are down despite these encouraging numbers. There was a 3% decline in mobile app revenues as compared to last year, which suggests that even though consumers are using apps more and more often, they are not spending quite as much money on them as they used to although that might pick back up again soon.

Some markets are performing a lot better than others, such as in Brazil where consumer spending on purchases within the app increased by 15%. Such news is heartening because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up allowing app developers to start targeting regions where revenue growth is an actual possibility and leave the tougher markets for when the economic climate settles down somewhat.

Short video apps, with TikTok leading the charge, have managed to attain a surprising level of profitability in the current fiscal year. Apps in this category have drastically outperformed other categories, raking in almost $700 million from in app consumer spending alone. Coming in second are OTT apps which crossed the $200 million revenue mark, followed by dating apps, file management apps and finally audio book apps.

Meanwhile, live streaming apps are going through a period of serious turmoil. After being hot items in 2021, they have sustained a loss of about $100 million so far. That casts some doubts on the future of these apps and suggests that they might need to switch things up to keep users pouring in.

Gaming apps have also seen sustained growth in each quarter. MOBA (Multiplayer online battle arena) games are in the lead with profits of around $400 million, but other gaming app categories have performed relatively well too. Team Battle apps that fall into the RPG genre have seen a disappointed few quarters and they have sustained heavy losses of about $400 million or so.