Covid-19 disrupted normalcy big time. We were happy in the secure 9 to 5 job, attending classroom lectures and traveling the world till Covid-19 surfaced and caught us unaware. Everything had to be sorted and redefined fast.
The surprise in Covid times was the importance of mobile applications.
ZOOM was everywhere and so was the COVID TRACKER!
Medical consultation through apps became the norm and so was e-learning.
FACT CHECK: Count the number of apps you have downloaded during the last 18 months. Tell us if it had to do anything with Covid-19. If yes, try figuring out the reason why you have downloaded it.
Are you eager to know how mobile applications are changing the industries in Covid-19? We talk about it and its aftermath.
1. Healthcare
With Covid-19 creating havoc in the health of people, the online medical consultation apps came as a savior to many. Then there were the tracker apps, vaccine finder apps, apps to find vacant beds at hospitals, helpline apps, mental health apps that helped people cope up with the Covid-19 implications.
The government in most of the countries released apps to track all information related to Covid-19.
Repercussions
Online medical booking & consultations will carry on forward. Chatbots for automatic appointments, remote patient monitoring, wearable devices- all these are the trends that will show huge improvisations. If you need to develop a healthcare app, hire the mobile app development services of a reputed agency.
2. Education
Covid-19 spelled disaster for classroom education. Students could not attend classes and the onus was on teachers and school management to start online classes.
People made good use of their spare time to enroll for online courses. Corporate employees, entrepreneurs, students- everyone found e-learning the new way to upgrade their skills. Even online hobby classes saw steady enrollments.
The online education market is projected to be over $300billion in the next five years. IBM designed e-learning modules for its employees and this helped it save $200 million in costs.
Repercussions
Now that people have realized that e-learning is beneficial, the edtech market is full of opportunities. If you have a great idea in mind to develop an e-learning app, you can hire mobile app development services to do the skilled job for you.
3. M-commerce
With strict lockdown measures in place, people had no other option but to order everything online from food, groceries, medicines, to clothes.
The young millennials prefer online shopping. But it is no surprise that during Covid-19, people who sought the traditional mode of shopping were forced to shop online.
Retailers saw an above 40% increase in their mobile app downloads. The e-commerce growth spiked from about 10% in Q1 2018 to 16% in Q1 2020.
The end for the brick-and-mortar model is already in sight. But the question is how soon.
Repercussions
Amazon may still be the king of e-commerce. But, the field is open to retailers of all sizes and types. Many have already taken the m-commerce route to success. If you are a retailer, you have a golden opportunity to have your mobile shopping app and start to drive in more customers and sales right away.
4. Health & Fitness
Covid-19 was an eye-opener to people who took health for granted. With people panicking and wanting to remain fit, there was a sudden demand for fitness, health, Yoga, mental health and diet apps.
Both Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdown meant that people needed to look after their physical and mental health. Fitness coaches started delivering online classes. The fitness and health app installations spiked by 45% during the beginning of Covid-19.
Repercussions
People who catch the fitness bug once, hardly let go of it. The fitness fad that has caught on during the Covid-19 is here to stay. If you are a fitness expert or a trainer, you can easily help other people achieve their fitness goals through your app.
5. Food online order & delivery
Not that GrubHub, DoorDash, Postmates and Uber Eats were less popular before Covid-19 struck our earth but the pandemic reiterated the fact that local food delivery apps are a savior, come what may.
In the US, the number of food delivery app users increased to 111million in 2020 from 80million in 2017. The market revenue of online food delivery order & delivery apps increased by 204% in the past five years.
The restaurant takeaway apps came to the rescue like a knight with shining armor during lockdown and quarantine. Well, we guess we have exaggerated it! But, we hope that you got our point.
And it benefited the other way too. It helped restaurants stay in business and survive the pandemic.
Repercussions
You can have your restaurant app if you do not want to join the on-demand third-party delivery model. This will help you to cut costs in the long run. You can hire mobile app development services for end-to-end restaurant take-away mobile app solutions.
6. Entertainment & Gaming
Online streaming platforms saw a spurt of subscriptions. Films meant to be released in theaters saw a digital release. New-released web series broke viewership records. While Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max continued with its increasing demand, entrants with production-house collaborations joined in to give the established players a run for their money.
Films like Luca, The Guilt Trip, A Family saw releases on online streaming apps while a host of other movies are expected to be released soon.
Live streaming of concerts became the new norm and YouTube benefitted from this. Social media platforms saw an increase in creator channels and viewers.
And yes, 2020 was YouTube’s biggest gaming year. Its gaming live stream and videos touched 100billion watch hours.
Gaming is evergreen and its growth spike continues unabashedly with 18% YOY growth and 80 billion mobile game downloads in 2020.
Repercussions
Entertainment was repurposed to suit the stay-at-home interests. With Covid-19 subsiding in many countries, big-budget films may plan for a theatrical release. Good content will stay on the online streaming apps through web series and small budget releases. Casual games have the biggest download share of 78%. Hire mobile app development services of a good mobile app development company to leverage the gaming app benefits for the long term.
7. Virtual Meetup
With complete lockdown, how do businesses schedule client meetings or employee meetups? How do schools prepare for online live lectures? Zoom, a video-conferencing app, set new records for app downloads during the peak of Covid-19. To date, the Zoom app has been downloaded 500million times. The annual meeting minutes clocked 3.3trillion for 2021 Q3 fiscal.
Social gatherings took place through social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. With 2.6billion monthly active users, Facebook continues to remain the most popular social media platform.
Repercussions
Virtual meeting apps will have popular demand as businesses understand the cost-effective benefits of holding virtual client meetings instead of spending on travel to visit the client. You can invest in building a meet-up app by hiring the services of a good mobile app development company.
8. Banking & finance
Payment through mobile wallets or contactless payments was the need of the hour. The use of mobile wallets like Google Pay saw a 50% rise in countries like the USA and France.
Lockdown meant that people could not go to banks to deposit or remove money. And quite obviously, there was a surge in mobile banking activity. Net banking and mobile banking became a necessity.
As people sat at homes through the lockdown, there was an increase in the opening of demat accounts and investments. A surprise was the sudden rise in investment activity through easy access to stock markets. The finance & investment apps started seeing an upward trend in downloads and installations.
Many finance consultation agencies hurried to get mobile app versions of their investment services.
Repercussions
Financial institutions like lending banks need to spruce up their mobile banking systems by making them fast and more secure. KYC checks through mobiles, live chatbots for query assistance, opening online accounts without having to visit the local branch- these are some of the points that need to be focused on to make the customer’s digital mobile journey more fruitful.
In A Nutshell
The advancements in mobile app development helped promote its vast usage among the masses. The future mobile app trends look promising. It will continue to grow exponentially even after the world limps back to normalcy.
With the vaccinations, the end of the Covid-19 pandemic may seem close. But it is a new dawn for mobile app development!
