We’d like to continue talking about some of the current facts of the mobile market because, as we said before, it is important for developers to be aware of everything that surrounds the mobile world and the statistics we discover about it.

We listed a few mobile stats in a previous article, so you would have an idea of how mobile market essentially keeps growing year by year, and now we want to deliver more data that supports why today remains a great time for app development.  

Time spent on mobiles keeps increasing

The usage of desktops and laptops keeps decreasing year by year, in big part due to the facilities provided by mobile devices to get things done. Now, users are getting used to perform their daily tasks with the single help of a mobile device.

It was estimated that in 2007 all digital usage would reach the 5.7 hours per day. Specifically, mobile usage has accelerated from 0.3 hours in 2008 to 3.1 hours these days, according to the experts. This will surely continue to increase.    

More than 205 billion mobile apps will be downloaded in 2018

Last year, almost 178 billion apps were downloaded, according to Statista. This year, the figure is projected to reach the 205.4 billion app downloads, and to increase significantly to 258.2 by 2022.

Google Play Store keeps being the app store with more downloads, given the great variety Android has, as we have mentioned before. Thanks to its market share, app developers have the advantage of showing their projects to a bigger number of users than all the other app stores.

Mobile usage dominated by apps

We´ve seen that mobile usage is increasing and it has become one of people´s main activities. We’ve also seen that app downloads keep increasing year by year in big quantities.

Inevitably, that could make us think that app usage has something to do with all this, and it’s true.

Recent studies show that the percentage of minutes spent on mobile apps is between 80-90% in big countries like the U.S., China, Indonesia, Brazil or the UK. Of that usage time, almost half of it belongs to media apps like social networks, entertainment and messaging apps.

Dynamic in-app ads get higher conversion rates

Nowadays, in-app ads have to be good enough to get users attention. The experienced analyst Mary Meeker showed that dynamic creative in-app ads are the best way to get improved conversion rates.

Studies suggest that the Return on Investment (ROI) is bigger in projects using dynamic in-app ads. Getting a 0.5% conversion rate for a total of 500 ad variations. That means that using the ideal ad format -based on the users’ context- will impact directly on your conversion rates.

All these are important statistics for developers to know in order to understand how the mobile world is evolving right now and where it is heading into.

Lastly, remember that you can become a professional Android Developer, learning how to create and monetize your own projects, by enrolling in the Professional Android Developer course, part of a Micromasters Program.