COVID-19 Impact on Mobile Apps in the Information, Communication, and Technology Industry

Overview:
The COVID-19 is a pandemic disease that has made the countries standstill for almost three quarters since November 2019 outbreak from China to all the countries worldwide. It affected the biological balance, world & country-wise economy, automotive sector, industrial sector, and others owing to which lockdowns were imposed for controlling the widespread of the viral disease. To prevent the rapid pace of disease spread lockdown is yet the better solution observed in many countries but it harms the economies of the developed as well as developing countries. One of the most common safety precautions imposed by all the countries is the introduction of lockdowns all over the country apart from daily needs services such as food items and groceries. The introduction of lockdown has resulted in the temporary closing of all operations for all sectors till unlock procedure is started by respective governments. COVID-19 pandemic has not only impacted health or medical concerns but also economical situations are facing consequences of this pandemic. These lockdown implementations resulted in a heavy impact on every industry, the majority of the businesses incurred losses. The pandemic situation dig a deep hole in customer’s financial incomes as companies are nearing recession, termination of employment, lay off and others problem are rising in the global market. The contact tracing apps simplify the administration process for health authorities. The government has found immense support from mobile apps to bring the COVID-19 situation under control. Contact tracing apps are a popular medium recommended by many health authorities.
For instance,
Remote work apps, educational apps, and healthcare apps were high in demand globally. There are no odds to work seamlessly from home without zoom cloud meetings, Slack, Skype, and other enterprise apps. Enterprises have embraced elastic workplace reality to witness a responsive and zero-latency transition while working from home.

Impact on Demand of Mobile Apps:
During Pandemic, certain mobile apps have made our lives much easier under house arrest. On-demand apps, grocery apps, entertainment apps, and digital payment apps have skyrocketed during the crises as people were not allowed to go out. Companies and businesses that have resorted to digital platforms at the right time have started reaping their benefits.
This pandemic is an eye-opener for businesses that consider mobile apps to be optional. This quarantined period has increased messaging, video calls, games, and video streaming among others soaring the market. The mobile app industry has more than 5 million apps that make it a crowded yet competitive world. However, it is growing at a rapid rate.
There is more demand for on-demand apps. Uber was one of the few companies that started to offer a demand-based pricing model, and it paved the way for a better user experience for many other popular apps. Starting from ride-sharing to food, healthcare, beauty, and travel there is always a need for on-demand apps everywhere. To date, 42% of the adult population has used at least one On-demand service. In 2021, the on-demand economy will go deeper into additional verticals and disrupt business and we are hoping to see on-demand apps as one of the key app development in 2021.

Impact on Supply of Mobile Apps:
The pandemic has resulted in the soaring market of the apps such as healthcare, remote work, entertainment, education, and many more. Due to quarantine, companies, educational institutes have shifted to the work from home criteria. Even the surge of education apps has gone a notch higher upon it. With online education gaining popularity, the teachers and students are depending upon it. In both situations, zoom meetings are the most used app in the market.
People also spent more time on social media and entertainment apps to keep themselves entertained. Be it on video streaming, music streaming, or social media. People are spending the majority of their time on these apps. The apps include popular apps such as Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and MX Player. The number is sticking at a speedy rate that is affecting the ranking of the apps. This is proof of the go-to streaming apps popularity in the market.
Health and medical apps usage is slowly increasing at a fast pace and is predicted to grow in the future as well. People are opting for healthcare apps, fitness apps, and medication apps. Along with this, telemedicine and other healthcare apps are used to schedule an appointment for remote consulting, information on symptoms, secure messaging, and so on.
Many conventional shopping centers such as malls were closed for a long time. Grocery and e-commerce apps have left no stones unturned to ensure their users have their essentials stocked up during the lockdown phase. People could shop for almost anything and everything through online shopping apps. On top of the shopping apps, e-commerce wallet applications such as PayPal and Google pay have also enabled secure and easy digital payments.

Steps were taken by Companies during COVID-19 Situations:
Our lives reflect around the smartphone and mobile apps that are connecting us with the world. In this dire situation, mobile apps allow us to gather information at our fingertips. Be it entertainment, working, healthcare, education mobile apps are the major source of knowledge.
The businesses are taking precautionary steps to ensure that employees are safe and mobile apps are the way out. This COVID-19 curve is slowly flattening up and our only way to move ahead is to ensure that being consumers and service providers we work together.
The rise of chatbots is a major change in the mobile app industry. More than 50% of buyers want more do-it-yourself custom service tools to expedite making an online purchase, and chatbots are the perfect way to extend that sort of customer relationship management.
For instance,
Starbucks has released an app called ‘My Starbucks Barista’ in which any customer has to tell the app the kind of coffee you want and it places an order for you. With 80% of enterprises expected to use chatbots by 2021 and users expecting quick and precise answers, it is a real business opportunity to integrate a chatbot for a mobile app.
IoT-enabled mobile apps are gaining a market share. Brands like Amazon and Google have fully utilized this technology and have strengthened the competition in the IoT segment by introducing the “Echo” line of devices and Google home voice controller respectively. Moreover, Google’s move to acquire wearable company Fitbit for USD 2.1 billion and its collaboration with Nest, a home security camera manufacturer, is an indication that the company is moving fast to use IoT technology.

Conclusion:
It is quite overwhelming to realize how much are these apps downloaded and stay in demand, where grocery and food delivery apps, healthcare, and educational apps are topping the charts. They can certainly consider the industries where the app market is booming. It may be even wiser for the companies to build apps for the industry that is currently in an inactive state such as the travel industry. This is the industry for which no apps must be getting created now due to travel restrictions and by the time things get normal and the industry starts breathing back again, not many apps will be there in the market. Other such industries are the hospitality and airline industries.