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Performance Marketing

Where is Mobile Headed in 2022?

February 22, 2022 | by Tamar Terell
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According to App Annie’s most recent State of Mobile report, the pandemic has caused a massive shift towards mobile. Click to learn more.

The pandemic caused a massive shift to online living. According to App Annie’s State of Mobile in 2022 report, that behavioral change also included a bigger adoption of mobile.  Businesses that live and die through content online are embracing mobile, too. Or if they aren’t, they should be.

The Online Consumer

It all starts with the consumer. Where are they spending time these days? According to App Annie, you can find them online. A lot. As reported by prnewswire.com, 2021 broke records for time spent on mobile: in the top 10 mobile markets, individuals spent 4.8 hours a day on mobile, and downloads reached 230 billion. That latter figure? That’s a five percent leap year over year.

Publishers have fed this demand by releasing two million new apps and games in 2021, bringing the total of apps and games issued on iOS and Google Play to a 21 million+. Apps like TikTok have dominated: TikTok in fact ranked as the No. 1 most-downloaded app globally, followed by Instagram and Facebook. The takeaway here is that social, photo, and/or video apps are, quite simply, hot; according to the report, seven of every 10 minutes spent online was devoted to these so-called “early-mover categories.” And we’re talking a global phenomenon: most countries in Asia saw a jump in time spent on the top 20 video streaming apps, for example (although it should be noted that in China, users seemed drawn specifically to short-form videos).

Gaming is also a huge industry—and getting huger. One need look no further than Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard to appreciate the current power (and future) of gaming.

Consumer Spend

It should be noted that consumers are digging into their wallets and spending. App Annie reveals that time spent in shopping apps jumped 18 percent year over year, clocking in at 100 billion hours. “Consumer spending across app stores grew 19% in 2021, hitting $170 billion,” Marketing Dive reports. Fast fashion, social shopping, and big box players got a particular boost.

For certain demographics, finance has also represented strong growth year over year. And let’s not forget dating apps, which flourished in a pandemic era when meeting people in person presented some significant challenges. As the Business Standard notes, people leaned into dating apps to work around the social distancing made necessary by Covid. Some people have said they plan to continue with online dating apps even after Covid restrictions ease up. And the numbers certainly tell an intriguing story: worldwide consumer spend on dating apps has exploded past $4.2 billion, a 55 percent increase from 2019 stats.

Some Implications for Content Sharing

So, what does all this mean for businesses and their content creators? We recommend that you:

  • Level up your approach to visual content sharing—in particular images and short-form video, which have dominated TikTok and Instagram.
  • Understand the gaming audience: who they are, and what motivates them to engage in content. This is especially important because gaming platforms are ushering in the metaverse. What kind of content plays (both advertising and organic) exist for your business in gaming platforms?
  • Consider how your brand can connect with Gen Z. Apps in categories already highly relevant to this surging demographic—photo and video, for example, as well as social and entertainment—can be excellent collaborators in terms of increasing user involvement. Gen Z is notoriously distrustful of brands, so when reaching out to this group, steer clear of lip service and make it clear you have not only your customers’ but also society’s best interests at heart.
  • Don’t forget Millennials, who have grown into interests in not only finance but shopping. Both categories represent auspicious areas for investment.
  • Finally, where does video streaming fit into your brand’s content sharing strategy? This is a particularly resonant question for investor relations, which increasingly relies on live events online to share crucial investor data.

Contact Investis Digital

Covid may have brought mobile to the next level, but it’s important to understand that going forward, mobile will continue to flourish. How does your content work within this crucial sector? Learn more about our Content & Creative services or contact us here. We can help.