Third party head players are still at home, but mobile app stores are on the rise
According to iMedia Consulting, in the third quarter of 2017, active users in domestic third-party app stores accounted for 42.8% of 360’s mobile assistant, 34.3% of App Bao, 24.0% of Baidu’s mobile assistant and 22.1% of Alibaba’s app Distribution, while the active users in other app stores were relatively low. Thus, in the crowded mobile app store market, it is these giants that are most active, dominating the strong third-party app store market.
However, such impressive results do not come as a relief to the head players, who have gathered a core audience, but are also experiencing a collective market segmentation by the rise of mobile app stores. Currently, the most competitive mobile app store brands are Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO and so on. With their high market share, these handset manufacturers are trying to cut into the large mobile application market and gain their own position.
It also turns out that the app stores on these phones have a built-in entry advantage.
First, to some extent, the larger the smartphone market share, the larger the app store market share. With so much smartphone market share, app stores seem like a no-brainer. These handset makers are selling their own phones, cashing in on the app distribution market and increasing the frequency with which users use the software because it can’t be uninstalled. In a February report on Android user attitudes, Penguin SmartCool found that 56.2 percent of Android users used their mobile app stores the most.
Second, it’s interesting that most of the app stores on these phones don’t include third-party app stores. That is to say, from the mobile phone app store search, such as Baidu mobile assistant, 360 mobile assistant these head applications, thus piled up their own industry barriers, in order to improve the user group stickiness. Even in terms of monthly active users, mobile app stores tend to surpass the giants. According to analysys’ Q2 2017 App Store market share report, the top three active users are: 38.9 percent of app Store active users, 26.9 percent of Baidu’s mobile assistant, and 24.3 percent of Huawei’s App Market Assistant.
It can be seen that the development strength of mobile app stores can be seen. With the increase of smartphone market share, they have become powerful competitors of these third-party app stores.
At the same time, when the demographic dividend of smart phones is gradually disappearing, mobile phone manufacturers, in order to find new incremental growth, are bound to step up efforts in the development of app store functions, and at the same time to provide value-added services for mobile phones. Therefore, some people believe that with the rise of mobile app stores, the development of these third-party mobile app stores has encountered a bottleneck, standing in the “terminal” port.
There’s a lot going on with third-party app store downloads
The domestic third-party app store market presents a hundred schools of contention, some people believe that with the rise of mobile app stores, third-party app stores are losing the trend. In fact, this judgment is not groundless. These third-party app store players still have all sorts of problems in their development as the market space is squeezed and the road ahead is confused.
First, there is the issue of bundling downloads, which users find distasteful. About the mobile app store software bundle problem, from the beginning of the “brazen” to later began to tighten, this phenomenon has not been eliminated, still exist in some app stores. For example, in the past two years, one of the criticisms of App stores such as App Store, App Treasure, is that they forcibly bundle downloaded software, which makes many users love and hate them. On the eve of March 15, Jinshan’s mobile assistant was found to be a bundle download problem, as well as a number of malicious applications. What’s more, the bundled software still doesn’t work after installation, prompting users to download unrelated software instead. Bundled or malicious downloads have long been a problem on app stores, but with increased regulation, the damage to users and the stigma attached to software is on the decline.
Secondly, the apps listed in the app stores are not completely legitimate software, and there are problems such as malicious charging and stealing user information. In the third quarter of this year, the ministry for 55 mobile application store of mobile phone software testing, found irregular collect user information such as illegal software up to 31, including baidu mobile phone assistant to the head players, a total of 4 included in the application software on the list, there are 91 portal, such problems AnFeng web app store, etc. This shows that, driven by interests, these third-party app stores are still drifting under the watchful eye. These app stores still have bugs in the way they include apps, and the mechanism for evaluating apps needs to be improved. In addition, many software application stores also have problems such as malicious brushing high software scores and confusing users’ sight.
As we all know, there has been a growing crackdown on security issues in mobile app stores, with malicious bundled software downloads and included software that does not comply with regulations being targeted for monitoring. More worrying than that, however, is the decline in user experience caused by the frequency of their own problems. If the security of the software is not guaranteed, users will have to migrate to other app stores. After all, there’s more than one app store to choose from, and word of mouth is key to retaining your core audience.
The professional advantage is still there, but it is also diminishing. The precise distribution of big data algorithms is a magic weapon for the future
In recent years, as the growth rate of mobile phone shipments has slowed, there has been little room for third-party app stores to add users. While app store user numbers are growing year over year, the growth is stabilizing, but finding more users is no longer the only way to grow, and the competition among app stores is now more about how to meet the needs of existing users.
However, as a professional mobile app store, when considering how to meet the needs of existing users, it needs to further clarify its own advantages and development difficulties.
Compared with mobile app stores, these third-party app stores offer a wide range of applications and software applications. It is undeniable that users choose an app store, the most direct purpose is to download a certain software, so eliminate the various problems existing in the app store, who includes more software, a richer variety of complete, the more attention will be attracted to users. Until now, full software has been the key to success for the third-party app store giants. However, it is expected that the advantages of these third-party app stores with a wide range of applications will gradually diminish as handset makers work on their own app store offerings, both to serve mobile users well and to lay the foundation for later value-added services.
The difficulties in the development of these third-party app stores are mainly reflected in the over-dependence of the profit model on games and the impact of advertising on the user experience. The third party app store revenue model, nothing more than games and advertising. With the growth of mobile games in the past two years and the cash flow generated by mobile games becoming visible profits, these application platforms have also seen the opportunity to cooperate with game developers and promote game software. However, due to their over-reliance on games, the monetization models of these third-party app store platforms are extremely limited, and even new additions are not easy to find.
So what can these third-party app stores do to avoid being “replaced” in the face of a loss of specialization and a single revenue model?
While the advantages of being a professional app store with a full range of apps are disappearing, these third-party app store leaders also have big data algorithms and other advantages that will help them grow in the future. First of all, give full play to the advantages of the innate algorithm. When THE AI era becomes the mainstream, use the big data algorithm to accurately distribute software to ensure the maximum installation capacity of each software. Secondly, we should pay attention to the younger age of smartphone users, adapt to the changing preferences of user groups, and launch targeted boutique applications.
In short, the app store is a hub for software application developers to reach mobile users, as well as a direct response to the needs of mobile Internet users. The number of users of third-party mobile app stores in China reached 462 million in the third quarter of 2017, data showed. Meanwhile, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the number of mobile Internet apps in the domestic market in the first half of 2017 exceeded 4.02 million, among which the number of third-party app stores distributed exceeded 627.7 billion times. It’s a huge market, and there’s a lot of potential in it. Therefore, while mobile apps are still the “permanent guests” of smart phones, and user needs are becoming more and more differentiated, the same thing is that app stores will still exist. What changes is that platforms change from one to another. Maybe one platform will win last, and maybe no platform will win last.
However, it should be noted that neither third-party mobile app stores nor mobile app stores can solve the core problem of user demand. The core needs of users are summed up, namely, reducing advertising interference is the biggest expectation of users, the variety of software is the most direct need of users, and software security is the most basic appeal of users. Meeting these three conditions is the biggest magic weapon for a mobile application store to retain users. The best response to any other app store will be “We’re professional, safe and reliable”.
Liu Kuang, meditation on the Internet, wechat official account: Liukuang110