How COVID-19 has impacted the app industry in 2021

A lot of things have changed during the course of the pandemic, including the app industry. As people have spent more time at home and on their phones, the way that customers interact with their mobile apps is a lot different today to how it was more than a year ago.

We’ve collected some of the most important trends, habits and user data to show you just how COVID affected the app industry in 2021, based on a new report released by Sensor Tower.

Popular apps

Over the past year, the most popular apps have been those that are related to business, news, education, and fitness. This is as expected as people spent more of their time checking for COVID updates, trying to learn something new or try to keep fit.

The most popular apps were Zoom and Google Meets, which both saw huge growth over the pandemic as more people were working from home.

The least popular apps were navigation and travel, which is to be expected as the majority of people spent the year locked up at home, unable to travel anywhere.

Trends

In Europe, the number of app downloads interestingly mirrored the patterns of COVID-19 case numbers—as the number of COVID cases went up, so did the number of app downloads.

As soon as offices started to close, the number of people downloading business-related apps reached an all-time high. This figure has remained steady over the course of the pandemic, but we can expect these figures to start dropping as people return to the office.

Similarly, fitness apps that focused on outdoor or at-home workouts were also among the most popular in 2020/2021—this includes apps like Strava and AllTrails. Although the number of downloads of these apps has remained high throughout the year, we can also expect to see these dips as people go back to work and gyms reopen.

Mobile games have also continued to be one of the most profitable types of app. Over the pandemic, year-to-year revenue for these apps grew from 15% to 40% in peak months.

The future for apps

Based on the pandemic trends, what does the future hold for the app industry in 2022?

The pandemic was a great time to have your own app as downloads and revenues were both high, but these figures are expected to settle as we move into a post-pandemic world.

However, what the pandemic has done has completely changed peoples’ habits around using apps. Apps have become much more a daily essential in many people’s routines, so we expect to see the industry continue to grow in the next few years.

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