App Annie, one of the top app measurement platforms, has come out with their annual report that pulls the big app trends from the past year. Let’s take a look back at what trends were the most notable.
1. According to the full report, “Google Play has increased its lead over iOS in worldwide downloads”. In 2014, it generated about 60% more app downloads than iOS, but iOS generated over 70% more yearly app revenue than Google Play. Therefore, both stores came out of 2014 extremely successful.
2. The app “superpowers” rocked it last year. The U.S., South Korea, and Japan collectively generated more revenue than the rest of the world…combined! Since they placed at #2 this year, it is predicted that the BRIC region (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) will perform very well in the upcoming year. BRIC countries had a huge growth in revenue by over 120% last year.
3. Messaging apps continued to rise. For example, WhatsApp grew so significantly that Facebook bought it. Overall, downloads of messaging apps increased 53% from 2013.
4. Travel/Transportation apps grew 30% from 2013. Uber, for example, teamed up with Google Maps which drove further app uploads.
5. Mobile video streaming apps have become more popular, and will continue to increase. It is now vital for the success of television networks to have a solid streaming app for their viewers. Streaming downloads have increased 44% from the previous year.
6. Games based on movies and TV shows had a strong showing in 2014, which sets the stage for an even stronger turnout in 2015.
7. According to App Annie’s proprietary demographics data, we are able to see the gender composition of downloads in the U.S. for multiple app categories. Social networking and Photo and Video appealed more to the female audience, while mobile gamers appealed more to the male audience.
8. Simple gaming apps, AKA “super casual gaming” had a great year. One or more “super casual” games finished in the top 10 app downloads for 10 out of 12 months in 2014.
9. Localization played an integral part in music app downloads. Shazam and Spotify made it big in Europe and North America while QQ Music was on top in China and Palco MP3 in Brazil.
