Apple Watch Application Market: Forecasts and Facts

In today's article, we will look at the Apple Watch application market that has grown over the past year and a half and compare the forecasts with the current trends identified using the AnalytiAll service.



A year and a half has passed since the debut of Apple Watch, which, according to all forecasts, should have opened a new era in the history of electronic devices. However, recent sales reports do not inspire optimism: everything indicates that the smart watch market is currently experiencing hard times. According to IDC , the overall decline in the market was about 32%. Even for Apple, the undisputed leader in the sector, sales for the third quarter fell by 55% compared to last year. In short, there are threatening signs of loss of user interest.

Not surprisingly, there have been lively discussions around the market for applications adapted for the Apple Watch over the past year. Many editions and independent experts talked about what utilities should be for a new device, how much they are needed and whether they have a future. With all the variety of positions, analysts agree on one thing: developers need to think in a completely different paradigm, abstracting from the experience of developing applications for phones. Apple Watch is a fundamentally new type of device, unique in terms of technical capabilities and in terms of designation.
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Most often, of course, reminders sound to adjust the design and control to a small screen, and the functionality to a weak battery and processor. But the content of the applications, in the opinion of many, must be adapted to the situations of use. The focus is on point, spontaneous, surface interactions. "Focus on applications that help the user to quickly deal with urgent matters," - advised on the blog BlueCloudsSolutions . After the spring presentation of Tim Cook, the editors of CultOfMac expressed themselves more categorically in their column : “Apple Watch is only for alerts, sports and a healthy lifestyle.”

So, in the current situation on the market, developers are recommended to narrow down the scope of applications to a minimum and sweep away most of the categories that appear to be unpromising. As a team working with the entire set of devices from Apple, we found it necessary to test the feasibility of this approach. If in the first half of the year such trends were really outlined, in a few months they should have been marked enough to find confirmation in figures. We turned to the numbers.

Statistics were collected using the AnalytiAll * service, which downloads and processes quantitative data directly from the AppStore. We were interested in three indicators on the basis of which we can draw conclusions about the ratio of supply and demand in the market: the number of developers, applications in categories and installations. So that the results are not distorted by random short-term factors, the maximum of the permissible time intervals was set - a year.


To begin, we conducted a study of world trends, not filtering information by country. For these indicators, the service has built three separate schedules, which, for convenience, we have put together in such a schedule:


Let's see how leading positions are distributed.

Among the developers are popular categories Utilities, Lifestyle, Performance, Entertainment and Business.

Leaders in the total number of applications - Utilities, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Performance, Games.

By the average number of installations , social networks, shopping, photo and video, weather and music prevail.

As we can see, the picture is curious. The list of categories that are popular with users is absolutely not intersected with the list of categories that are currently being actively developed by developers. The situation on the market, therefore, seems to be extremely unbalanced - supply and demand do not balance each other, user needs are not realized and not served. With what it can be connected?

To answer the question, we try to first understand these needs. The statement that watch owners are mostly tuned to fast interactions is definitely true. It is not by chance that social services and applications for photo or video filming, that is, activities that are directly tied to the moment, come out on top. At the same time, the scornful remark of the authors with CultofMac that the functions of the watch are limited to the delivery of alerts is unfair. At a minimum, Apple Watch copes with the provision of relevant information (applications from the Weather category and, a little lower in the rating, News) and instant transactions (applications from the Shopping category). Particularly interesting is the appearance in the top category Music - this clearly indicates that despite the weak battery, the device can be used in the background.

So, from the point of view of users, the potential of Apple Watch is associated with a spontaneous solution of short-term problems. Meanwhile, statistics on the number of development companies and available applications reflects a very different point of view. Manufacturers rely primarily on functional utilities, designed to facilitate the daily life of the user with the help of a whole set of tools. Perhaps there is a certain generalized image of Central Asia - the owners of Apple Watch, busy people who need an electronic assistant to cope with the influx of cases. In parallel with this, another direction is developing - gaming and entertainment content. In general and in general, classes that require concentration of attention and long interactions come to the fore.

Summarizing what has been said: the policy adopted by the developers is based on ideas about Central Asia, but does not take sufficient account of the consumption situations that determine user behavior. Analytical studies of the beginning of the year correctly predicted the general trend, although many promising niches were too radically cut off. The paradigm shift, which the experts called for, has not happened so far - which means that innovative developers now have plenty of opportunities to fill numerous lacunae with their product.

Finally, we turn to local markets and see how the identified trends vary depending on geography. For clarity, we chose to analyze large localizations from three different regions - China, the United States and Russia.

With the same parameters, AnalytiAll gave us the following numbers:



China :
Lead by the number of development companies : Utilities, Lifestyle, Performance, Entertainment, Health and Sport

Lead by number of applications : Utilities, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Performance, Games

Are in the lead by the number of installations : Games: Strategy, Shopping, Weather, Social Networks, Games: Puzzles



USA
Lead by the number of development companies : Utilities, Lifestyle, Performance, Entertainment, Health and Sport

By the number of applications : Utilities, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Performance, Games

Lead by the number of installations : Social Networks, Photo and Video, Shopping, Music, Weather



Russia
Lead by the number of development companies : Utilities, Lifestyle, Performance, Entertainment, Health and Sport

Lead by number of applications : Utilities, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Games, Education

Lead by the number of installations : Social Networks, Photo and Video, Games: Action, Shopping, Games: Simulators

As you can conclude, application tops and development companies with rare exceptions (such as the Education category in Russia) remain virtually unchanged - manufacturers from around the world adhere to the same policy. But the hierarchy by the number of installations in each region is individual. For example, games of individual genres that did not show outstanding results in the general statistics, come to the leading positions in China and Russia. Such surprises suggest the need for a flexible approach to the development of new markets with in-depth analysis of each.

Summarize. The situation in the market for applications for watches now, no doubt, is unstable and unpredictable. It is all the more important to accept someone else's predictions with a fair amount of skepticism and build your own based on actual data. Unfortunately, there are still few analytical tools for those who work with Apple Watch - we ourselves will not reject recommendations in the comments. For our part, we can advise the aforementioned AnalytiAll, which daily provides fresh statistics on tops and categories of applications with the ability to choose localization - conveniently and clearly. For those who are willing to work a lot with information and quickly change the course if necessary, the market still opens up broad prospects.