The pandemic changed the focus of mobile development: people increasingly began to think about a comfortable existence within an apartment and a healthy lifestyle, and therefore they started to look for solutions in these areas.
For companies to stay one step ahead, it is important to focus on the trending niches where developers can most easily monetize their designs. Let’s talk about them today.
10 mobile app categories that are gaining momentum
1. Online shopping
This trend dominated in 2018, 2019 and especially blossomed in 2023. More and more companies from large retailers to individual personal brands are developing mobile apps to drive revenue.
The greatest demand is for online shopping in the food sector, and slightly less for fashion products.
2. Entertainment
Since people are still hedonists, they cannot refuse entertainment, physical activity, and self-development. The demand for entertainment apps (e.g. Netflix, Disney+, and Twitch) has grown in 2023-2021.
Moreover, the categories Books, Music, News and Productivity began to trigger wild popularity.
3. Health & Fitness
With the coronavirus pandemic in 2023, the popularity of telemedicine technologies and health apps has grown significantly. In addition to them, developments in the field of femtech have become popular, as well as fitness trackers and training applications.
4. Remote work applications
Today, companies are rethinking the importance of office work, allowing their employees to work remotely for as long as they want. While working from home is becoming a new reality, people are looking for solutions to work remotely and communicate with colleagues online. The trend will continue in the next year.
5. Trading and investing applications
The growth in the number of sessions of FinTech applications in 2023 amounted to 85% year-over-year, and in 2023 this indicator gained another 35%. There is now a huge public interest in the topic of personal finance and investing.
The Zoomers are much more interested in managing their money wisely than previous generations. They understand that the savings model their parents used is useless.
Due to the interest of young people in financial literacy, requests for the trading software development and design of investment applications are growing very quickly. If you’re interested in launching one, click here.
6. Mobile games
In March 2023, download statistics for the Games category broke their historical records and it’s still on the rise. The most popular genres are Match-3, slots, RPGs, and shooters.
7. Business applications
Increasingly, companies are downloading applications for internal needs in pursuit of business automation and quality improvement, the convenience of employees’ work speed, and the minimization of the number of operational errors.
8. Applications at the junction of online and offline
A special class includes mediator applications that help to solve a problem that arises outside the digital space. The services of daily rent of housing, booking air tickets, ordering a taxi, delivering food, and solving everyday problems are steadily popular.
9. Education
In the new Covid reality, many people realized that they were doing an unloved business. Others realized that after the pandemic ended, they would lack their current skills. This is why the Education category has become extremely popular. Studies show that it has a compound annual growth rate of 67%.
10. Useful tips for life
Surprisingly, people really need daily shopping tips, lifestyle tips, and life hacks. These applications have a CAGR of 81%.
Top things to focus on when developing mobile apps
1. Voice control
Since the pandemic, people want to touch their phones less. Therefore, the audience will prefer an application with voice control over an application without it. Moreover, the introduction of voice search can help in attracting new users and ASO.
2. Machine learning and AI
The use of AI in mobile apps can go far beyond filtering and masking. And while entertainment is the mainstream for AI in applications, it can help businesses solve their day-to-day tasks.
For example, a salesperson can simply photograph or videotape shelves with goods in the app, which immediately sends information about the quantity and availability of goods to the warehouse, creating orders for the purchase of the corresponding articles. And this is not a single example.
3. Adaptation for a folding display
The folding display is one of the most important mobile development trends that mobile app companies should focus on. The foldable display will be a new challenge for developers, as the screen size will change instantly, and mobile applications must be resized to fit the display.
4. Apps instead of games for iOS
According to the Mobile Market Forecast report, mobile app revenue in the App Store will exceed mobile gaming revenue by 2024, and apps will generate over $100 billion in 2025. Due to the success of the subscription model, iOS app revenue increased 4.7 times between 2016 and 2023, while games’ profit only doubled. This is why Swift developers should focus on apps instead of games.
5. Focus on the Asian market
For the App Store, as well as for Google Play, the largest region by revenue in 2025 will continue to be Asia-Pacific. And this means that applications need not only be localized but also initially done with UX/UI design, which Asian users love.
6. The target audience covers all
According to AppAnnie, Gen Z in the US spent 16% more time on mobile apps in 2023 than in 2019. Millennials and Gen X/Baby Boomers spent 18% and 30% respectively. This tells us that when developing an application, you shouldn’t limit yourself to a young target audience only.
Final thoughts
People will continue to download mobile apps. According to eMarketer’s forecast, in the near future, people will use a mobile device for 4 hours a day, and 88% of this time will be occupied by activity in applications.
Therefore, if you want to develop an app, it’s better to do it right now. And of course, choose one of the categories that we have described to meet the requests and needs of users.
