With his 12 years of experience in Telecommunications & VAS, Mario Hachem is the expert in creating, planning and implementing new mobile services & products. An entrepreneur at heart, Mario created TEDMOB, a Mobile Solutions & Apps development firm that works with Telecom Operators, Media Agencies, Enterprises and Startups to turn their ideas into money generating apps.
On February 11, 2016, Mario revealed to a room full of app enthusiasts, designers and professionals at Berytech Health & Technology, the latest trends in the apps ads mobile advertising industry.
Mario starts by clarifying that 80% of revenue is generated from free apps with in-app purchases: “Make sure to have a monetization strategy for your app, otherwise get an expert!”
Apps are valued by the number of downloads, by the stickiness factor – how many time the user goes back to using the app and by how it will generate money to the developer.
Although the number of Android users in Lebanon is higher, IOS users spend more money on apps, with the system having more credibility, security and a more trustworthy payment system. Mario’s advice is to use the native developer for each system in developing an app and skipping the hybrid developer completely.
The top 3 types of apps downloaded worldwide are: games, social media & music, while the US remains the biggest market for the game industry.
According to Mario, the industry trends that will take over the market in 2016 are:
- Internet of things (IoT) –Things connected to the web will surge. Soon, you will see apps that connect you to your fridge, your doorlock, …
- Usage is swaying from desktop to mobile – When designing anything for the web, user experience needs to be mobile friendly.
- Wearable Tech – A greater challenge in creating services that integrate wearables, such as the iWatch, successfully.
- App security – protecting information of user is becoming fundamental as apps turn into commerce.
- Rapid mobile development – Apps need to constantly stay updated with new features and options. The life cycle of an update is every 6 months.
- M-commerce and mobile payments – Companies will increasingly be using apps for sales.
- Beacon and location based wi-fi services – Advertisers will increasingly use wi-fi to push information through to users in physical locations such as department stores.
- Big data and app analytics – With data sets becoming so large, Big Data is a new approach in processing and analyzing data.
- Virtual reality, augmented reality, oculus rift and more – will slowly take over the traditional advertising approaches.
- Deep linking – is the use of a hyperlink that links to a specific, generally searchable or indexed, piece of web content on a website rather than the website’s homepage.
Mario’s word of advice for successful entrepreneurs is to focus on design, work with professional and spend money on marketing.
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