According to a report from Deloitte (a professional service firm), about one third of smartphone owners in the UK doesn’t care about apps. Deloitte told The Telegraph that in a typical month, 31% of smartphone users (one in three) doesn’t download any apps on their devices, which is a steep increase from less than one in five back in 2013.
The report also states that almost nine in ten people never spend any money on apps or other content for smartphones, which suggests that demand for paid apps has decreased. However, Deloitte claims that this doesn’t necessarily mean that the size of the app market is shrinking, because the app recommendation market is growing larger by the second.
Paul Lee, Deloitte‘s head of research for technology, media, and telecommunications, says that there are two reasons for the decline in the rate of downloads per user:
1. The number of smartphone owners over 50, who have no interest in using their smartphones as a data device, has increased.
When you look at who uses IM (instant messaging) services like WhatsApp and WeChat, it tends to be younger age groups and it declines very steeply with age.
2. Users who have owned smartphones for several months have their preferred sets of apps, largely influenced by what their friends are using.
The more friends you have on one network, the less likely you are to move, so inertia sets in and it becomes increasingly hard for a new player to come and dislodge the other player.
What do you think about this? Are you among those 31% that don’t care about apps at all? 🙂