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Part II: Speed
Definition - What does App Economy mean?
[Warm Up]
App economy refers to the range of economic activity surrounding mobile applications. Mobile apps created new fortunes for entrepreneurs and changed the way business is done. The app economy encompasses the sale of apps, ad revenue or public relations generated by free apps, and the hardware devices on which apps are designed to run.
In 2007, virtually no mobile apps existed. As of 2011, more than 25 billion apps have been downloaded.
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Source：techopedia
http://www.techopedia.com/definition/28141/app-economy
Millions of people and business around the world use apps on a daily basis credit. Apps modernize global economy By Sam Bevan
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Since their infancy apps have exploded on a global scale, with the EU’s app sector currently worth €17.5billion. By 2018 it could employ 4.8 million people and contribute €63 billion to the EU economy according to a study carried out by GIGAOM and NUI Galway for the European Commission.
Today the app economy employs 1million developers, and 800,000 people in marketing and support posts. This could rise to 2.7million developers and 2.1million support staff by 2018. EU buyers and advertisers spent €6.1billion on apps in 2013, 30% of total global app spending, with this potentially growing to €18.7billion in 2018. Consumer spending combined with advertising and contract work could lead to an annual revenue of €63billion for the app sector within five years.
Currently, EU and North American each developers generate 42% each of app revenues in EU and US markets. Although the future looks promising, developers have noted issues about the skills gap, connectivity and fragmentation, which could mean the app boom coming to a close.
Some believe there is a shortage of digital skills with roughly 38% of independent and in-house developers saying EU businesses had issues competing with US salaries. Whilst around 30% said of developers said startup developers required more business expertise, and a quarter of all surveyed said there should be more developers. Also, surprisingly, only 9% of developers are female.
The five most successful EU app companies represent 49% of the appearances of EU companies in the top 50 grossing apps in the EU and in the U.S. All of these companies are game companies, reflecting the game bias of the app economy. The first, second, and fifth-ranking companies King.com, Supercell, and Rovio, are all Nordic, indicative of the tech focus of these countries’ economies.
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In the US, from 2007 to 2012 the app economy has created about 466,000 jobs, according to a survey by TechNet. California took the biggest share of the growth, claiming 23.8% of app-related jobs. The New York, northern New Jersey and Long Island areas topped the regional list with 9.2% of app-sparked growth.
The success of EU app companies seems to be situated in the same areas in Europe, with only Germany, France, and the U.K. having any meaningful number of app companies that are successful outside of their native markets. Some countries such as Italy have no app companies with apps featuring in the top 50 slots outside of their domestic markets.
Recently, we have seen how much one app can go for with Facebook acquiring WhatsApp at a cost of £11.4billion. WhatsApp has over 450 million users, with 70% of these active each day. In a staggering comparison, Facebook also notes that the messaging volume of WhatsApp approaches the SMS volume of the entire global telecom industry. Plus, WhatsApp is estimated to be gaining 1million new users a day. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO said, “WhatsApp is on a path to connect 1 billion people. The services that reach that milestone are all incredibly valuable.” The company notes that it only has 32 engineers, making the ratio 1 engineer to every 14 million users. It processes 50 billion messages a day across seven platforms. Facebook currently boasts 556 million mobile daily active users. One particular reason Facebook could be purchasing WhatsApp is to bolster its international footprint.
In 2013, we downloaded 10 apps for every single woman, man, and child on the planet. Half of these apps were Android apps, which have 58% of the smartphone app share, according to ABI Research, whilst 41% of these will be iOS apps. Apple’s iPhone will account for 33% of smartphone app downloads, ABI says, while the company’s iPad will take 75% of tablet app downloads. Windows phone and tablet devices accounted for the majority of the rest, with BlackBerry taking about a 2% share.
[351 words]
Source：The Positive
http://thepositive.com/apps-modernize-global-economy/
Is the 'app economy' dead? Or just morphing? Paid apps are becoming a rare item as the market moves to other funding models. By Joe McKendrick for Service Oriented | October 4, 2013
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Are paid apps going the way of DOS applications? In recent years, analysts have pegged the burgeoning "app economy" -- in which publishers can sell their solutions for what amounts to micropayments -- at about $25 billion. However, it appears less of it is about selling the actual apps to a broad audience, as app stores are now brimming with free apps that have a few strings attached, designed to enhance marketing or serve as on-ramps to online (in-app) purchases.
In a recent TechCrunch post, Sarah Perez cites an analysis by app provider Flurry, which concludes that 90 percent of apps are now free -- up from 84 percent just last year.
Why? Because many publishers offer apps as part of their branding, marketing, customer service, or to facilitate in-app sales. "The app stores fill up with 'good enough' alternatives to paid apps, while major publishers game the charts with free offerings... which can then be used for their ongoing user acquisition efforts."
There has been a move away attempting to collect revenues directly from end-users, then. Perez identifies the apps that are still selling -- which include productivity tools that enable document scanning, scheduling, recording tools, and email organizers. The apps that are leading sales list are "very utilitarian," she observes. "These apps about are about getting something done.... things users do often enough to make it worth paying for the upgraded experience or additional features beyond what you could get in a free version."
Perhaps apps have simply become the new form of front-end Web application. In the PC Web economy, fewer people are actually paying for basic applications, and using more from the Web under a different business model. No one pays to use Facebook, Twitter, email or Google Docs, for example.
Plus, the process of selling apps, even through an app store, isn't just "build it and they will come." Selling enough apps to make it worthwhile and profitable takes the same marketing oomph as it does for any piece of software. The arrival of mobile hasn't altered the laws of economics when it comes to software publishing. As developers have learned over the decades, you can have the most sophisticated and elegant application ever created, but if it isn't publicized and marketed, it will remain on the shelf.
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Source：ZD net
http://www.zdnet.com/is-the-app-economy-dead-or-just-morphing-7000021560/
The App Economy: a Zero Sum Game Written by Marcel Warmerdam on 20/02/2014
[Time 5]
Since the introduction of the smartphone the ICT sector is no longer leading when it comes to information technology. The pendulum has definitely swung towards information as the key driver of growth rather than technology. It gets harder to amaze us with yet another mind blowing gadget. Instead we just ask ourselves: what can this device do for me?
And that is where apps come in. Since the smartphone introduction over a million apps have been developed and hundreds of billions downloaded. There is an app for almost everything and if it doesn’t exist you can bet it soon will. The app phenomenon has not escaped the attention of the EU which envisages an economic app opportunity in terms of jobs and GDP. The report ‘Sizing the European App Economy’ produced by Gigaom was quoted by Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Europe’s Digital Agenda during the launch of the Eurapp study in Brussels last month. The report regards the emerging app economy as the next driver of innovative growth. An important trend that we should cherish and support.
The outcome of course is no surprise. The EU still has the ambition to become the most innovative economy in the world and the app trend is regarded as an embodiment of this. As a result the report focuses on the number of jobs that are being created in the app economy – coders, designers and at a later stage but in much larger quantities, related marketing and sales jobs – and the GDP contribution. After all that is what the EU is all about.
In fact, it is not the only report of its kind. In September 2013 Visionmobile and Plum Consulting published the report ‘The European App Economy’ which proclaims more or less the same albeit it with different numbers:
Just to be clear both companies researched the impact of app trends for the current 28 EU countries.
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The conclusions are clear: the app economy is growing fast in terms of jobs and contribution to GDP. It also promises to be a driver of EU job growth as exemplified by Gigaoms statement that the current app workforce will grow from 1.8 million to 4.8 million in 2018. Both reports make suggestions on how the EU can facilitate this emerging job generator and GDP driver.
But why is everybody so excited about the app economy as the new driver of IT growth. According to the Hackett group by 2017 some 1.6 million IT jobs in North America and Europe will have been off-shored. The EU share of this can be estimated at 50%. Even though the spike of the off-shoring trend lies behind us IT job off-shoring is expected to continue for a while. Additional IT jobs are also disappearing due to ongoing automation of IT processes. Next to that we see a resource shift from the PC platform to the smartphone/tablet platform. As a result former PC developers and application programmers are shifting their focus as well and start developing apps instead of PC software and ipso facto replace their PC job for an app job.
So, is the app economy the IT employment savior the EU wants it to be? Hardly, IT off-shoring, IT automation and a platform shift leads us to a situation that can best be described as a zero sum game where the emergence of the app economy softens the IT job problem elsewhere. The effect of the app economy might be further mitigated by the consumerization effect on app technology. The turn of the century showed a spike in businesses wanting to get an online presence. As a result website agencies were popping up all over the place to accommodate the need for web presence. Now, 15 years later every one can make a website with WordPress or Joomla. The app world will see a similar development putting app development more and more in the hands of the masses. For business it may mean that app building may just become a functional requirement; just like Excel skills.
The impact of the app economy cannot be overestimated when it comes to the consumption of apps. It will have a deep impact on the way people and business operate in our fast growing digital economy. But we should not expect the app-economy to become the motor of job growth without referring to the broader context of the app economy. It definitely will not solve EU unemployment that is currently at 26 million.
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Source：The Metis Files
http://www.themetisfiles.com/2014/02/the-app-economy-a-zero-sum-game/
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发表于 2014-7-25 20:26:31
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