There are over seven billion people in the world, and nearly 3.5 billion have mobile phones. Statistics also show that 90% of mobile time is spent on applications.
Mobile is fundamentally transforming business models and marketplaces at a surprising rate. To outsmart your competitors, it is critical to analyze the mobile application development trends that are ruling the industry. There are many technologies that are set to impact the mobile app development industry in 2020, let’s take a deep dive into some of the most popular trends.
IoT Integration
The Internet of Things (IoT) isn’t a new concept but the rise in mobile development across a wide range of industries and sectors has opened up many opportunities for the IoT.
The IoT refers to the growing network of physical devices that are connected to the internet, all collecting and sharing data to provide added convenience and control to consumers and, in some cases, even allow automating simple processes such as ordering supplies.
The IoT is poised for steady growth in the coming years with software leading the way. The global Internet of Things market is expected to reach $318 billion by 2023. According to Statista, the revenue from technology associated with the Internet of Things will reach 1.6 trillion by 2025. Household devices, automobiles, and healthcare are three specific markets to keep an eye on.
Foldable Devices
Foldable devices constitute a small part of the overall mobile market share – manufacturers shipped a total of one million foldable smartphones in 2019. However more and more users show interest in foldable devices and analysts expect foldable smartphone shipments to reach 50.1 million units globally by 2022.
According to Samsung, hundreds of popular Android applications have been optimized for Galaxy Fold, including Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Microsoft Office, Amazon Prime Video, and VSCO. Video streaming and gaming applications can benefit most from foldable because the increased screen size provides extra space for additional information and controls.
Wearables
The market of wearable devices already offers a variety of trackers, fitness bands, smartwatches, and even smart rings. These wearables have changed the way we interact with smart devices. The market for wearables is constantly growing. According to Statista, around 25% of adults in the USA, will use some wearable devices by 2022.
The popularity of wearables is expected to increase due to the growing interest in healthcare. This COVID-19 pandemic has shown that wearable devices can be used for medical and fitness purposes. Another way to use the potential of wearable devices with mobile applications is augmented reality. AR supporting smart glasses may be useful for mechanical problem solving, navigation, and drone piloting.
Beacon Technology
According to Statista, in 2016, the beacon market was valued at 519.6 million U.S. dollars and will reach 56.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2026. The technology is the first mobile application trend that is completely embraced by museums, hotel management and healthcare spheres and more.
Beacons are small transmitters that connect to Bluetooth-enabled devices like smartphones. They were developed to connect and transmit data to smart devices to make location-based searching and interaction easier and more accurate. They are one of the latest developments in location technology and proximity marketing. Today, beacons are used in a wide array of industries, including retail, healthcare, banking, logistics, airports, cinema, and more. The best part of beacon is that an average user can easily get used to its functionality.
Mobile Commerce
This trend has been dominating 2018, 2019, and continues to thrive in 2020. It is expected that by 2021, mobile e-commerce will rake in some $3.5 trillion and make up almost three quarters (72.9 percent) of e-commerce sales.
With more and more people leaning towards mobile purchasing, mobile e-commerce functionality is a top feature and it seems like every day another business is launching an application to stay competitive and drive sales.
Applications play a significant role in the current and future success of mobile e-commerce. Apple Pay and Google Wallet have encouraged customers to shop via smartphones. Retail and e-commerce companies build applications that let their customers shop easily without cash or physical cards.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
It is expected that the global ML industry will be worth almost $9 billion by 2022. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have been among the top trends in mobile application development for the last few years in a row. When machine learning is combined with deep learning, developers can do wonders by providing valuable data and real-time analytics.
Here are the AI features that can be implemented into a mobile application:
- image recognition;
- face recognition;
- speech recognition;
- text and image classification;
- sentiment recognition and classification;
- predictive maintenance.
AI and ML can make applications smarter and improve their performance at all levels. From backend to frontend development, they are changing the way applications are built in 2020.
Mobile Wallets
According to a recent report, there was $6.1 billion worth of transactions from mobile wallets in 2019. The number is expected to reach $13.98 billion by 2022.
As more people use their mobile devices to shop online the popularity of mobile e-commerce is growing, and so does the popularity of mobile wallets. Mobile wallets are convenient and make the user experience smoother and more enjoyable. Moreover, they are very secure and keep users’ money safe. Plenty of applications, for example, allow you to lend to businesses and individuals, store money in any currency you like and even offer better overall foreign exchange rates. Of course, there are more applications of mobile wallets. For example, mobile wallet technology is used in smartwatches as a viable replacement for credit cards.
Wallet integration will become a standard feature for every application that processes transactions. Even though mobile wallets aren’t a common thing now, their popularity will grow significantly in the coming years.
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality
Mobile apps can use augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) for a wide range of use cases. In 2019, many mobile applications involved in gaming and entertainment already shifted to augmented reality and virtual reality.
Now businesses in other sectors have realized the advantages of AR and started implementing it in their applications. Brands like IKEA and Sephora have included AR in their applications to enhance user experience.
Although AR and VR are still developing, they have enormous potential and will take center stage in iOS and Android app development.
Chatbots
There are many ways to use chatbots. In the B2B field, chatbots can be utilized to accelerate communication with customers and provide them with support 24/7. Many businesses have already integrated chatbots into their routine tasks. In fact, they are becoming the new standard of customer service.
It may seem surprising, but chatbots started to appear in the market about a decade ago. Over the years, chatbots have evolved and become much more advanced. Since they are driven by AI, their responses are becoming more human-like. Some even expect them to be indistinguishable from humans.
The chatbot market size is projected to grow from $2.6 billion in 2019 to $9.4 billion by 2024 at a compound annual growth rate of 29.7% which means that the demand for chatbot development is increasing day after day. Chatbots reduce operating costs for enterprises and can work in segments such as marketing, payments and processing, and service.
Predictive Analytics
Everything follows a pattern. Predictive analytics analyzes huge volumes of data, extracts valuable insights and uses them to identify issues before they occur and suggest ways to avoid them. In mobile development, predictive analytics can work on two fronts – improve user experience and the development process. For example, it can predict what action the user might take next or analyze what pages in the app have the lowest retention rate and find the root of the problem.
In the coming years, predictive analytics will be implemented in a variety of industries, for a wide range of mobile applications, primarily to enhance the user experience. The idea here is that every user will have personalized experience with an application. For example, users will be provided with personal product suggestions based on their actions and behavior history.
Cloud Computing
While cloud technology is not new, it hasn’t reached its full potential yet. It provides a wide range of possibilities for mobile development such as reducing costs in hosting, improved loading capacity, and streamlined business operations. Due to cloud computing, applications can store information and carry out complex tasks on the cloud, as opposed to storing data directly on the user’s device.
Besides that, cloud computing can help to solve many security-related concerns, making mobile app development more secure, fast, and reliable.
Cloud platforms like Dropbox and AWS have enabled applications to run directly in the cloud. As cloud computing takes over the mobile world, the coming years will see quantum computing, hybrid cloud solutions, and the development of cloud services.
Conclusion
Mobile app development is continuously evolving. As a business, you need to stay on top of the trends to gain an edge in your niche. Of course, you don’t need to implement every single trend, but you need to have a general understanding of how the market is changing so you can adapt your business and marketing strategies to the growing consumer demands.
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