Mobile Consumer Trends 2020: Edtech & Healthcare Apps show explosive growth

Mobile consumer trends have touched new heights with outbreak of Covid-19 which has disrupted the global economy like no other with the trendline dipping with uncertainty. This disruption has given opportunity to lot of companies to increase their digital adoption of products and services that were predominantly considered offline.

Adapting to the new shift In lifestyle has required us to rely on a few apps more than we used to from before, apps like Online Pharmacy, Health & Fitness, and Edtech have shown exponential growth over the last two quarters, while Travel and Hospitality apps show little progress while people still cannot forgo the OTT entertainment binge. These are the trends explained in the latest  MoEngage Global Mobile Consumer Trends Report 2020.

Businesses across all verticals around the globe are reeling under the impact of the global pandemic, a lot has changed in the way users interact with businesses across various verticals. While, some industries have seen a surge in user activity, others are grappling with the irrevocable losses that have taken place in their operations

Apart from Food Delivery, Mobility, and Sports apps, all other industry verticals have seen an increase in both downloads and Daily Active Users(DAU).In Europe, while the aforementioned industry verticals have seen a slight decrease in Daily Active Users, the number of downloads has increased from Q1, 2020.

Edtech Apps keep up the Momentum

Edtech apps in general, have seen an increase in downloads and active users, with most of the schools and universities switching to online classes since March 2020. Students, teachers and professors across the globe have picked up the pace and adopted the digital way. Meanwhile, most companies have also offered an additional discount / free modules on some courses to encourage the adoption of the e-learning by people. Here is a look at some of the stats: 

The Americas saw the largest increase in new users (42.25%), significantly higher than the global average of 34.14% while India came a respectable second with 31.35% increase in new users in Q2 over Q1.

Globally, edtech apps have seen an increase in Daily Active Users (22.39%), downloads (34.14%), frequency of usage (31.18%) and the average session duration (2.73%).

Healthcare on Rise

 Healthcare and Education Apps are the MVPs of mobile consumption-  In Q2, 2020, Health & Fitness apps saw an increase of 45.66% in the number of global mobile app downloads from Q1, 2020. With gyms and fitness studios forced to close due to the lockdown, most of them chose to go digital  and the downloads of the fitness apps grew by  46% worldwide.

• Global rise in downloads of fitness apps in Q2 vs Q1 was 45.66%.
• The boost to global downloads of fitness apps in Q2 globally was driven majorly by India (156.73%), which translated to 58 million active users.
•  Global rise in daily active users of fitness apps in Q2 vs Q1 was 24.04%.

There was almost an 39% rise in downloads of medical apps in Q2 vs Q1 with an average session duration keeping constant in Q2 as compared to Q1 on these apps

While these numbers may not change in the rest of the 4 remaining months of 2020, it has given the mobile economy a whole new dimension with people relying more and more on technology to get through these tough times.