We are at the fag end of 2017, and the global app ecosystem has grown bigger than ever. The phrase ‘there’s an app for that’ (coined by Apple Inc. in 2009) has become more than literally true – with multiple apps existing for the same core purpose…for delivering similar values to end-users. According to reasonable estimates, close to 198 billion applications will have been downloaded this year – with the Android platform notching up ~91 billion downloads, while the iOS app download count hovering around the 26 billion mark. By 2021, we will be looking at more than 350 billion app downloads in a single calendar year.

With the rapid growth of smartphone users worldwide, it’s not surprising that the mobile gaming industry has matured and developed into one of the most lucrative markets in the business world. In fact, the overall revenue of the mGaming sphere has doubled in only three years. In 2014, the market weighed $25 billion, which rose to $46.2 billion in 2017.

In North America, the adoption of IoT (internet of things) projects had risen to an impressive 27.5% last year – nearly double of the corresponding figure in 2013. The growing popularity of IoT is evident in the UK too, with adoption rates expected to surge towards the 45% mark by 2020 (in 2015, the IoT adoption here was ~30%). While there are no doubts over the spiralling demands for enterprise IoT applications and smart tools for big data analytics – speculations, however, remain over the usability of the tools currently available. Retention levels are, on average, on the lower side – and in many cases, poorly conceptualized/overcomplicated product designs lie at the core of the problem. To put things in perspective, the overall...

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Increasing the user-engagement levels is the biggest mantra, as far as the success of mobile applications are concerned. On a YoY basis, 2017 witnessed ~55% increase in the average number of messages sent through apps to end users. Facilitating seamless two-way communication on the mobile platform is the key – and both ‘push notifications‘ as well as ‘in-app messaging‘ are extremely useful tools in this context.