TMCnews Featured Article

In the world of staying connected, we’re quite concerned with our ability to remain mobile. We want access to everything on our smartphones that we’re accustomed to in the office and vice versa. If we use a VoIP system in house, we want mobile VoIP. If we have a great phone, we want our employers to pay for it. If we’re accustomed to flexibility, we expect technology to support it.

Companies the world over may be ready to support this way of thinking – at least to some degree. According to Juniper Research (News - Alert), annual revenues from apps access through mobile devices are expected to reach $99 billion by 2019. A large portion of this revenue will be claimed by games, yet lifestyle applications will claim the highest growth.

One lifestyle app type expected to dominate is that of mobile dating. A significant portion of online dating is migrating to mobile devices. And, now that online dating has gone mainstream, most net growth in the sector is likely to occur through smartphone usage. This only makes sense as we rely on our smartphones for a variety of other standard transactions. Why move over to the PC just to find a date?

It also appears that network operators are getting out of the storefront app business. A few still maintain their investments, but their storefronts overall account for less than 2 percent of app downloads throughout the global marketplace. The bottom line – these operators, as much as they want a piece of app revenue, they simply cannot compete with Apple and Google (News - Alert). The only way to monetize content is to bundle it with subscriptions or through the billing relationship.

A few other findings from the Juniper Research report are somewhat staggering. For instance – more than 235 billion apps are expected to be downloaded worldwide this year. Behind Google, Baidu is now the second-largest storefront. And, barely 1 percent of applications are now paid for at the point of download. In other words – we want our mobile apps for free before we consider paying for a premium version.

The same is true for mobile VoIP. We’re accustomed to apps being free and VoIP being very low cost within the corporate environment. Before we’re willing to pay for the app, we want to try it out to make sure it meets our needs, the quality is above expectation and that it doesn’t crash upon use. While it may not seem like much, too many apps can’t meet these three expectations, which makes it difficult to pay upfront.

For those apps that can meet and exceed these expectations, we’ll pay the added fee for the premium version. This is where the revenue opportunities exist for those able to perform.