End of apps?

End of apps? A third of Britons don’t download

 

 

 

 

 

With billion dollar valuations aplenty, the so-called 'app economy' is responsible for a lot of froth in modern tech industry. But is it all downhill from here? A new report suggests that interest in apps might be falling, with a third of UK smartphone users not trying a single piece of new software in a typical month.

The change is due to a number of factors, including the growing number of older users and the fact that many current apps are good enough already. "When you had 20% of people with smartphones they were mainly early adopters," explains Paul Lee, head of research for technology at Deloitte. "But the law of averages means the more people you get the less enthusiastic their behaviour is going to be."

Research from Deloitte suggests even for customers who still bother to explore Google Play or Apple's App Store, downloads a month has fallen from an average of 2.32 in 2013 to just 1.82 in 2014. To make it worse, the report suggests nine out of 10 never spend money on apps at all.

However, Lee stresses that declining number of downloads is only "one facet" and that people are still using apps, with many of us having settled with the ones we want. "The best apps get updated all the time, it's not as if you have a static piece of software," he told The Independent. "People will have up to 30 apps they'll use on their phones and they'll use, say, 10 of them on a regular basis. It's the same way people have an enormous amount of TV channels to choose from but they only end up using the main channels." This is bad news for independent developers looking to challenge billion-dollar tech companies-Last week British game company King lost more than £1 billion in its market valuation as consumers got bored of its flagship title Candy Crush Saga.

King's declining fortunes have drawn comparisons with Zynga - a San Francisco-based 'social gaming' outfit that rose to fortune with its Facebook smash hit Farmville, but suffered a similar fall, first in interest and then revenue.