The year 2020 is going to be remembered for eternity due to the global coronavirus pandemic. The COVID-19 virus spreads rapidly in almost every country on earth and people have to stay in their homes for social distancing. The lockdown has been over but that doesn’t mean COVID-19 is also over. Everyone should not get mustered for their safety. While people are staying in their homes as much as possible, many are now dependent on their mobile phones for news, comfort, exercise, entertainment, and much more.
On a closer look, you will realize that many different mobile apps are playing an important role in this crisis. The user behavior changed a lot in this time and most of people turned to use mobile apps of genres such as news, exercise, music streaming, video streaming, online food delivery, grocery delivery, medicine delivery, healthcare, etc. In this article, we are going to discuss these mobile app trends in this article in detail.
Delivery Apps
When the COVID-19 starts spreading thousands of people rushed to supermarkets, general stores, or “Kirana store”, to stock up essentials like oil, wheat flour, etc. to survive in their home during the lockdown. However, many people opted to avoid the queues or going out and ordered items staying at their house through food delivery mobile apps.
In fact, in comparison to the figures of January 2020, the new mobile app installations of Instacart, Shipt, and Drizly were, 166% in March.
At the beginning of March, the new installations of Instacart tremendously increased to an all-time high of the year. In more details, the number of new installations of Instacart was increased by 51% in February, and by 49% in the first three weeks of March. Instacart has a huge reputation in the genre of food delivery apps in the USA, so you shouldn’t be surprised with such an increase in its downloads.
Shipt, another grocery delivery app that is now owned by Target, also welcomed a great number of new users at this time. In February, there was an increase of 34% in the new users while in the first three weeks of March, 37% of new users joined the app.
The popular beverage delivery app Drizly also gets an increased number of downloads by 52% in February and 39% in March.
Obviously, people are not looking up for only food to get delivered. When the restaurants or hotels were allowed to open for only food delivery and no dine-in then many people opt to get their favorites dishes or meals delivered to them. It begins in February and then continued in March. For the food delivery apps such as Uber Eats, Postmates, GrubHub, DoorDash, etc. got highly increase during this time. In March only, the new installations for these four apps were more than 60%.
Doordash got new users by the range of 53% in February and 29% in the March beginning, while the number of installations of the GrubHub app was increased by 54% in Feb. and 29% in March. The numbers were also in favor of Uber Eats, the company saw of rose of 30% new installs during this period.
The growth in March was especially due to Postmates, as it can be used for deliveries beyond restaurant meals. Postmates also did many marketing campaigns which result in installation boosts. The number of new Postmates app installs increased 64% in February and 39% in the first three weeks of March.
Entertainment Apps
In March, as the people were stuck in their houses, a major chunk of people relied on many entertainment apps for entertainment. For e.g. one of the most popular videos streaming application Netflix reported the addition of a record 15.77 million paid subscribers during the lockdown period – doubled than what it was expected.
In the music industry, Pandora observed a huge spike in the number of installations throughout March. Spotify also didn’t lag in the music streaming industry. It remains to be seen if consumers will pivot to audio for entertainment, or if the video will remain ascendant.
Well, social media apps are always more preferred for passing time in comparison to any other types of apps. Users can find the content of almost every genre and hobby on social media apps. During March, when there is a huge hype of COVID-19 the combined installs of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Tik Tok, went up by 23% from January 2020.
There was an increase of 32% in the Tik Tok installations in March, however, soon after many countries including India banned Tik Tok due to data theft issues. Snapchat got 40% new installs during February and March. Instagram’s new installations were increased by 48% in February and 25% in March. It is noticing that social media apps that are used for entertainment got more downloads in comparison to those social media which are used for the news feed.
Video Apps
When it comes to video streaming, the biggest platform and the magnum opus of this industry is YouTube. YouTube saw a huge increase in the number of downloads during the lockdown period. Another popular video streaming mobile apps such as Netflix, Hulu, Tubi TV, and Pluto TV were combined up 33% from the beginning of the year. This again proofs the increased interest in the pure content platforms among users in the lockdown period.
Gaming mobile applications
Gaming apps were mostly used by teenagers and young people within the age group of 18-29. Popular mobile gaming apps such as Candy Crush, Coinmaster, Foxnext, Peakgames, and Subway Surfers got 95% new downloads in comparison to January this year. And, by the second half of March, usage of CoinMaster, Daily Themed Crossword Puzzle, and Words with Friends was up 67% from the beginning of the year.
Exercise Apps
In the lockdown period when people were staying at their homes, fitness and exercise were among the main concerns for many people. As there was not an option to go out in gymnasiums, parks, jogging tracks, etc. people were dependent on fitness apps to stay healthy. For e.g. the fitness app MyFitnessPal saw a huge rose in installations in March, and there was a small increase in installation in the Strava app as well. However, MyFitnesPal also got huge installations in the month of January as well probably due to the New Year fitness resolutions.
There are many different trends that play a role here. You shouldn’t be seeing a great increase in the number of downloads of the apps like MyFitnessPal or Peloton during the beginning of the year because as we mentioned people take resolutions of staying fit during this time.
But then in March, the spike wasn’t so high not because they stopped marketing or providing new features but because many people chose to watch movies or ordering meals instead of staying fit.
Outdoor focused apps like the Strava app also didn’t get a huge spike because the people were restricted to stay in their homes. Only a few could do cycling.
Work From Home Apps
During the COVID-19 many companies chose for the work from a home working model. By this, there was a sharp spike in the apps like Zoom, GoToMeeting, Join. Me and Skype for meetings, calls, or group discussions. Between March 11 and March 22, total new installations of these apps went up by 2000% over January figures.
- Zoom saw an increase of 57% in the month of February and a whopping 270% in March.
- Skype Business App got new installations of 51% in February and 66% in March.
- The number of new GoToMeeting app installs increased by 53% in February and 85% in March.
- JoinMe app installs increased by 48% in February and 43% in March.
There is a great increase in the number of downloads for all these apps but we see a huge spike in Zoom downloads specifically. This is because Zoom is a widely adopted app for online classroom lectures, conferences, and meetings and it allows more than 100 members to join the group video call.
TeleMedicine
As the people were trying to avoid-in contact until and unless it is very necessary, it is predictable that no one will go to the hospital as they were the main hotspots of the novel coronavirus. People were trying to stay away from sick people and doctors too. That’s why there is a sharp increase in telemedicine health apps such as Doctor on Demand, WebMD, and MDLive. These apps have seen a huge jump in in-app installs in March. Although it is worth noticing that many health professionals were using consumer tools such as Zoom or Google Meet for providing treatment. Still, total new installs of these three telemedicine-specific apps were up 70% in March compared to January 2020.
Wrapping Up
Coronavirus has shaken the entire world. Some lost lives due to the disease, some due to hunger, and some due to migration. However, the mobile industry got positive benefits from this deadly virus. People welcomed many mobile apps in their life and it is quite possible that they will continue to use them. This makes them inquisitive for many other mobile apps as well. Hence, if you have an idea of developing a mobile app then it is the perfect time for it. We, at Amplework, the best mobile app development company in India, are having expertise in mobile application development in both iOS and Android. Please let us know your requirements.
