A recent survey by International Data Corporation (IDC) reveals the extravagant adoption of smart phones in the recent times and in the near future as it reveals that almost 87% of the world’s smart connected device market by shall be occupied by the smartphones and tablets by 2017.
The survey shows that the worldwide market share of smartphones which was 65.1% until 2013 shall drastically shoot up to 70.5% by 2017.
Clearly, this is a huge difference in the numbers indicating how fast the mobile adoption is penetrating worldwide. The mobile phones or the so-called modern ‘smartphones’ are no longer the traditional communication devices. Today, they are meant for more than connectivity and serve to be the vital sources of information, entertainment and m-commerce as well. Rightly said, they are truly the smartest devices which enable users to get away with so many functionalities in their routine lives through infinitive apps installed in a single device.
[Two big trends will be] mobility as a primary compute platform and [devices] fading to the background. It's the whole notion of work-life integration, rather than work-life balance. That's what I mean by [devices] fading into the background; they just become so integrated with what you do. You're in the car and you start something, and you go into the office and you start another task, and you move into a conference room and you just keep right on going. Maybe another way to say that would be comfortable computing: There's just a comfort and familiarity with mobile working that it's no longer a big deal. - says Benjamin Robbins, Principal, Palador
According to Benjamin Robbins, there’s comfort and familiarity with mobile working. How about doing your office work uninterruptedly right from your mobile phone as you navigate or move from one place to other? Sounds good, right? This is what mobile apps are allowing users to do and yes, this is also one of the primary reasons that enterprises today are looking to go for mobile application development.
Today, mobile phone and apps are much a part of enterprises. They allow businesses to execute their tasks much efficiently and faster, while adding the factor of convenience. The enterprise mobile apps allow the employees of an organization to carry with their work any time, from anywhere and right from their mobile devices, thereby adding speed and efficiency to their processes.
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In 2016, the enterprises have started integrating mobile technology in their marketing strategies. These marketers have realized the lucrative opportunity that mobile platform can offer them to differentiate their brands in the competitive market.
According to Forbes, nearly 81% of enterprise CEOs today prefer adopting enterprise mobile apps for customer engagement and to create a competitive advantage for their brand in the market.
M-Commerce Apps are Growing Fast:
M-commerce growth is predicted to outgrow growth of ecommerce in a ratio of 3:1 as 2017 approaches. Today, more and more consumers are preferring to buy products and services right from their smart phones. Right now in 2016, it’s the usage of the shopping apps that is sprouting faster than any other category of apps. The growing convenience with shopping carts, payment options, check outs and user-friendly UIs are predominant reasons for this growth of m-commerce or shopping applications in the recent times.
“The importance of mobile is becoming higher on our priority list,” says Rick Neuman, executive vice-president of technology and ecommerce at Walmart.
It seems like mobile strategy remains the highest priority for all the ecommerce firms worldwide in 2016 as they tend to engage more audience to their brands. Mobile shopping apps are what these firms are offering to their customers for easy shopping experiences.
Gartner reveals that mobile commerce revenue shall account for 50% of the total digital commerce revenue of U.S and 24.4% of overall ecommerce revenues by the end of 2017. Hence, this shows that m-commerce apps shall play a vital role for the businesses to attract sales in the years to come.
Mobile Apps and IoT:
“In 2016 we'll enter an era very much focused on apps for work and for getting things done, [which are] likely to be tied to Internet of Things (IoT) -- whether it has to do with helping employees become or stay healthy, or hospitals and how they triage, fix and rehabilitate people.” – says Bob Egan, Chief Research Officer, Sepharim Research
Mobile apps in 2016 have become an entirely different ball game with integration of IoT (Internet of Things). Mobile app integration with IoT is all about creating flexible mobile experiences which embrace new opportunities provided by the sensors and actors around. IoT is the future technology with lot of potential to empower enterprises with sky-rocketing sales and business. Though many enterprises belonging to health-care, energy and automotive industry verticals have already set a trend of mobile integration with IoT, it seems like there is still a need to backend infrastructure of mobile platforms to enable improved connectivity with other connected devices. It is definite that IoT shall be an important part of mobile app development in the 2017 and the many more years to come.
Brand Innovation with Beacons, Cloud and Wearable Technologies
There are certainly good advancements towards beacons, cloud and wearable technologies by the firms in 2016. Many organizations across various industry verticals like Retail, Hospitality, Tourism, Education, Healthcare, Entertainment, Travel, Corporate, Real Estate, Automotive, Advertising etc., have already started leveraging benefits from beacons and location based services to attract customers to their business.
There are wearable devices like smart watches, eye-glasses, fitness devices and other wearables that connect with mobile devices offering seamless experience through cross-device apps to their users. The trend of wearables is evolving rapidly in recent times as people now want their mobile devices like smart phones and tablets to be integrated with their smart wearable devices. Hence, the demand for apps for wearable devices is certain to shoot up in the coming years.
The booming cloud technology is now giving developers the ability to integrate and synchronize apps developed for multiple devices. Now the developers can build functionality that can be used on various mobile devices with similar data and features. Hence, according to sources, cloud is a prominent technology that shall have a major impact on mobile app development processes in the years to come.
Security shall be a Concern
According to Gartner, 75% of the mobile applications present today are unsecure. There are still possible chances for hackers to exploit security gaps in the apps developed and extract sensitive and confidential information from them. Hence, security in mobile applications still remains to be a major concern for enterprises. It seems like enterprises in 2016 and 2017 will turn out to mobile app development platforms that do not store app data directly on the device to ensure more safety of the critical mobile app information.
Speed of Development
In the days to come, speed of development shall definitely matter a lot for the enterprises looking to fill out the gap between production and app requirements. According to a research by Gartner, “Enterprise mobile apps will outstrip available development capacity five to one”. Hence, enterprises will require to put in their best efforts and speed to meet the mobile app demand in the years to come. There shall no doubt be a few challenges before enterprises as traditional development methods will take time and hence, would not work in the fast development world. Enterprises will require therefore require a new, innovative approach to boost up the productivity of their apps to get in pace with the competition. Moreover, new skill sets shall be required as the firm shall depend on its resources for the productivity and hence, they need better and faster working resources to meet their needs.
While these are a few major enterprise mobility trends for 2016 – 2017, there is still a list of technologies that may mark a revolution in enterprise mobile app world in the years to come. However, one thing is for sure that enterprise mobile apps will just get better and better with time irrespective of the technologies wearing out or popping up with the passing time. Just watch out for the trends in the world of mobile app development to ensure you have the latest and best mobile apps for your enterprise to reap the best possible profits.
