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Weekly News For You To Stay Updated With The App Industry
It’s the little things in life that make us happy. Like a Spotify Wrapped or a Spring Recap. By the way, Spring Recep is YouTube Music's new thing along with its annual recap. Also, there were a lot of good stories on the app market like Sensor Tower’s sunny report on the projected rise of consumer spending on apps. Read more on these stories below.
Educate, entertain, and enlighten yourselves with our latest edition of The Weekly News Wr(app). You can start from here:
1. App spending to touch a massive $233 billion by 2026
The app market is booming. The pandemic forced everyone to turn to their phones for everything. Naturally, this led to an increase in money spent on in-app purchases. Even though app usage has normalized since the pandemic-induced spike, Sensor Tower is predicting consumer app spending to increase by 77% in the next 5 years.
In 2021, in-app spending touched $132 billion across Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store. A 77% increase would mean a total revenue of $233 billion.
To break it down between the two app stores, Apple will generate $161 billion by 2026 and the Play Store will rake in $72 billion within the same time period. According to Sensor Tower, app adoption will continue to grow across both app stores with the Play Store predicted to record 143 billion installs by 2026 (App Store is projected to reach 38 billion installs).
The Asian app market is singled out to lead global app adoption. Play Store is predicted to record 88.3 billion first-time installs in Asia, and App Store will see 14.5 billion installs.
It’s interesting to see Asia mentioned because we know that India is a growing market for smartphones and apps, so we can expect a lot of app adoption to happen right here in India.
Source: https://bit.ly/3O6BslZ
2. Netflix games record a healthy 13 billion downloads
Netflix has some good news to show with their mobile games. Despite Netflix recording its lowest growth since 2015, and trying to lure more subscribers with an ad-based subscription plan, the streaming giant registered 13 billion downloads of its mobile games.
The main contributor to this growth was the Stranger Things range of games, with Stranger Things 1984 and Stranger Things 3: The Game sitting at rank 1 and 3 respectively. Sandwiched between the two was the racing game Netflix Asphalt Xtreme. Stranger Things came out with season 4 recently which helped the game downloads to hit 1.4 million in May 2022.
Impressively, Netflix has decided to plod on in spite of its recent failings, and the games are helping with its race to the top.
Source: https://bit.ly/3Qwx6Gj
3. Samsung releases Samsung Wallet to compete with Google Wallet and Apple Wallet
Samsung has come out with its own version of a digital wallet to give users a place to store personal information like ID cards, vaccination records, boarding passes, etc.
The Samsung Wallet works similarly to Apple Wallet where it allows users to store personal data and payment information. Samsung will soon allow storing driver's licenses, student IDs, etc. within the app. The company announced that this new wallet is a combination of two Samsung services, viz. Samsung Pass and Samsung Pay.
Interestingly, the new app will integrate with Samsung Blockchain Wallet which will enable users to manage their crypto portfolio.
According to Jeanie Han, executive VP and head of digital life at Samsung Electronics, “Samsung Wallet is bringing a new level of everyday convenience to mobile devices with a totally safe and secure environment for storing digital keys, cards and more,”.
Currently, Samsung Galaxy users from the US, France, the UK, Germany, Spain, and Italy can access Samsung Wallet. There’s no word when this will be available in other markets.
Source: https://tcrn.ch/3y8H5Kw
4. WhatsApp group call hosts can now mute individual participants
A much-needed feature was released by WhatsApp for its group calls. The host of a particular group call can now mute any individual who forgets to go on mute. This feature was sorely needed ever since WhatsApp increased its group calling capacity from 8 to 32 back in April.
WhatsApp is also introducing many other features that mimic popular video conferencing apps like notifications of new participants during a call, the ability to personal message an individual in a call, etc.
Being in quarantine and working from home has exposed us to many of these video and voice calling mishaps. But no matter how many times it’s happened, it’s still annoying when someone forgets to mute themselves. So, thank you WhatsApp.
Source: https://bit.ly/3xKqhrW
5. YouTube Music introduces “Seasonal Recaps”
If you’re a Spotify user, you must be aware of the annual tradition called “Spotify Wrapped” which shows you your most played songs of the year. YouTube Music also had something similar last year to compete with Spotify Wrapped.
Now, they’re taking it a step further and introducing these lists seasonally, aptly dubbed “Seasonal Recaps”.
As you can guess, YouTube will gather your most played songs/albums/artists/playlists of a particular season and arrange them for you in a neat little list. The first of these lists is called “Spring Recep” and is available on the app now. The list also includes interesting information about your listening habits like total minutes listened, top artists, top five songs, genres, etc.
The inspiration behind these seasonal recaps was the flood of positive feedback it received from the 2021 Recap, according to YouTube Product Manager Ayshaw Khan.
He also said that “moving forward, we’ll be providing listeners with a personalized experience for each season along with our annual Recap to reflect your year in music. You can also expect to see more new stats and features further showcasing your unique tastes later this year”.
So expect a Summer Recap, Winter Recap, and more soon. Wait, will we get a Monsoon Recap for India? Would make a great list for sure!
Source: https://tcrn.ch/3nmS8tL
