The mobile applications market is one of the fastest-growing segments of the IT industry today. Suffice it to say that the total number of mobile phone users in 2020 was 5.19 billion. This is 124 million (2.4%) more than in 2019. There are no statistics for 2021, but the trend is more than clear. The total number of mobile applications in Google Play and the App Store has long exceeded 5 million.
It is obvious that, on the one hand, the development of mobile applications and custom software solutions is an extremely promising area for realizing creative, technical, scientific, and business potential. On the other hand, there is so much competition here that simply following general trends is not enough.
Even just to merely keep your positions, you need to anticipate what users will need tomorrow. And already today to begin work on satisfying such their requests, which they do not yet know about.
Sounds fantastic? But wouldn’t our present life seem fantastic if our parents from the 60s and 70s of the last century looked at it? And here and there are already special technologies for practically error-free, scientifically based predictions.
By the way, artificial intelligence plays an almost equal role next to the human mind in making these predictions. And they – just imagine! — come true with almost one hundred percent accuracy.
Let’s look into tomorrow
According to the forecast of the developer company of mobile application and web development Qarea.com — its experts suppose that by 2022, the mobile applications market will be characterized, in particular, by such numbers:
- The total number of mobile applications available for installation is 6 billion.
- The total number of mobile app downloads per year is 258 billion.
- The total amount of money that users will leave in mobile app stores is $157 billion.
- Average cost per user per device per year — $26.
Let’s remember how many millions of mobile device users were in 2020. Also, take into consideration that all the numbers we operate today tend to grow exponentially.
Just compare: The $157 billion that app stores will receive in 2022 represents a 92 percent increase in their revenues compared to 2017.
Skeptics might argue that the mobile app market, as well as the total number of mobile devices in North America and Europe, has approached saturation in recent years. However, the ever-growing markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America should not be forgotten. In India alone, mobile phone sales are up 26 percent in 2021 over the previous year. In numerical terms, it means 39 million devices. Note that this is the data for the first quarter of 2021. Extend the vector until December, taking into account the dynamics, and you will clearly see that it is more than premature to talk about any market stagnation and overproduction crisis.
Thus, based on the methods of mathematical statistics and in-depth analysis of the market, as one of the leading IT companies in this field, Qarea does in its forecasts, it is safe to say that by 2023 the global mobile device market will grow to $165 billion, or 14% CAGR over 2016.
Speaking of tongues (and languages)
In the current context, it would be interesting to talk about programming languages that will be the most relevant in the near future.
Several surprises await us here. Experts predict that along with such recognized leaders as Python and Node.js, languages, frameworks, and platforms, about which very little is known today, will begin to rise to the top positions in the lists of popularity.
In particular, we are talking about such perfect strangers. Meeting with them in a development project today can be very surprising. But there is every reason to assert that literally tomorrow they may become as familiar as, say, C ++ or Java.
- Kotlin. A fast-growing language for developing Android applications, whose developers have set an ambitious goal to supplant Java. So far, the professional Kotlin community is quite small, but if you are thinking about investing in a promising startup, you should definitely look this way.
- Swift. As a daring newbie as Kotlin, but in the iOS app field. The developers are trying to create an Objective-C alternative to Swift. The main advantage of this language is simpler and more compact code.
- Rust. A product developed by Mozilla. Claims to supplant C and C++. Developers and those who have already worked with this solution note its simplicity, high level of security, and versatility.
- Still a green newbie, almost imperceptible against the background of the recognized giants of programming. However, this strangely named language was recognized in the United States as “the least hated programming language.”
Briefly about the main
Remember how Alice from Wonderland used to say: “If you want to keep up, you need to run with all your might. And if you want to win, you need to run at least twice as fast”? Now, we understand that she was referring to the situation in the mobile device market. In order to maintain a competitive position and stay afloat, it is necessary to allocate resources as soon as possible to master those promising trends, which, most likely, may become the de facto standard tomorrow. You need to either train your own employees or look for a reliable outsourcing company that meets these high requirements.
If we expand the quote from Lewis Carroll, then to succeed in the IT market of tomorrow, all the above measures must be applied yesterday. So don’t waste your time.