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The Sensor Tower platform released a five-year app market forecast that estimates user spending on the App Store and Google Play will grow by 104% and 140%, respectively, to $96 billion and $60 billion by 2023.
In 2023, 161 billion apps are expected to be downloaded worldwide. By comparison, 106 billion were downloaded in 2018. In addition, according to Sensor Tower calculations, Russia will get the sixth highest revenue on Android.
We decided to ask developer experts if they agree with this prediction and how they see the app market in five years.
Alexander Adamov, PICONSULT Digital mobile application developer:
- The assumption of a significant increase in spending by App Store and Google Play store users looks reasonable, given the rapid growth of mobile traffic and the technological evolution of hardware platforms. Over the past 2 years, mobile devices have demonstrated impressive performance and usability. Augmented and virtual reality technologies are in increasing demand. Also, the number of different monetization models has increased significantly. Who knows what features will be available to mobile device users in 2023 that they will be willing to pay for.
The increase in app downloads is no surprise either. The quality of service and speed of mobile Internet networks are increasing every year, and the number of mobile device users is also increasing. In some world regions the number of mobile device users reaches 90% and higher. In this connection the growth in the number of downloads and installations of applications looks logical.
The only controversial point is the change of Russia's position in the list of countries with the highest income in Google Play from tenth to sixth. In view of the unstable economic situation, this forecast seems doubtful. It is certainly possible that Russia will overtake Great Britain and France in terms of income from Google Play, but it will depend on many factors, including macroeconomic ones.
However, not everyone agrees with such predictions. A number of experts consider this kind of analysis to be more of a "tea-leaf guessing", which does not take into account possible risks and other external factors.
Igor Zuev is the general director of the mobile marketing agency Mobisharks (Kokoc Group):
- Giving any forecasts with a horizon of 5 years in our industry is absolutely meaningless. We do not know how the situation may change over this time, and what new technologies and solutions will emerge.
All these calculations are fortune-telling. In 5 years, there may well be no App Store and Google Play.
Extrapolating a line graph is easy - you draw a straight line and that's it. But real analytics has to include the impact of various factors that we can't predict right now. Nothing ever develops linearly. Especially at such a great distance for our industry. The mobile application market is only 10 years old, and the forecast here is for 5 years. It is like predicting the price of oil and the volume of production in 2100.
Time will tell how things will actually develop, but Sensor Tower's forecasts look quite realistic. What do you think? Do tell us in the comments!