Is The Mobile App Market Maturing?

By Michael Patrick McSweeney (@mpmcsweeney)

For the past several years, a large spike in app downloads has occurred on Christmas Day. The many consumers eagerly firing up their new smartphones and tablets and downloading the top 25 apps in every available category no doubt is driven the trend.

Christmas Day 2013 saw the biggest spike in app downloads in the past two years. Additionally, downloads on that day were up 91 percent when compared with an average day during the first three weeks of December.

Yet, the data released by Flurry, a mobile analytics and advertising firm, suggest the growth rate is slowing. The actual number of downloads rose, but the growth rate fell to just 11 percent in 2013 from 90 percent year over year in 2012. Christmas Day 2011 app downloads jumped 97 percent compared with those that occurred in 2010.

The numbers suggest that maturation is occurring in the mobile market, Mary Ellen Gordon Flurry, director of industry insight and analytics, wrote in a Dec. 30 blog post.

“The slowing growth rates and smaller Christmas Day app download spike signal market maturation,” Gordon said. “Many consumers in Western Europe and English-speaking countries âˆ’ large mobile markets where Christmas is a big holiday âˆ’ already have a smartphone or a tablet. Fewer people are coming online with mobile for the very first time.”

Does the data show that mobile-device users are paring their fast-paced downloading on Christmas? Flurry broke down the numbers by app category, and the data suggest users are gravitating toward familiar types when they activate their brand-new phone or tablet.

Social, Gaming Apps Lead Downloads
Since 2011, gaming apps consistently have been the most-downloaded apps on Christmas Day, and 2013 was no exception. However, it represented the lowest rate of mobile-game downloads in the past two years, according to Flurry.

Social-media apps, which have been consistently the second-strongest app category, fell on Christmas Day in 2013 from the previous year. Yet the drop was less precipitous than the decline in gaming-app downloads.

Media-app downloads rose on Christmas Day 2013 compared with the same day the previous year. Downloads for this category last year fell from 2011’s record high.

These varying rates reflect the kinds of activities most people engage in on Christmas Day, Gordon noted.

“Because our devices have become so intertwined with our lives, on a day like Christmas, when most of us are relaxing, the apps we download reflect that,” he said. “Games and social apps were downloaded on Christmas at twice the rate they were on a typical December day.”

What Does Market Maturity Mean For App Developers?
The big question posed in Gordon’s blog post is: What’s next for app developers?

”Maturation of the app market means that changes are in store for app developers. The gold rush days of huge jumps in the overall size of the connected-device installed base on Christmas, followed by a dizzying rush of app downloads, are fading,” Gordon wrote.

Specialization âˆ’ the targeting of specific user demographics âˆ’ may hold the key to success for future app development, she suggests. As more consumers jump on the mobile bandwagon âˆ’ and this holiday season showed that this is indeed taking place âˆ’ both challenges and opportunities await those seeking to make the Next Great App.

To learn more about Flurry’s research data, read the full blog post by clicking here.