2018 wasn’t a kind year for Facebook at all. The company faced heavy criticisms over the way they handle the data of their users and 2019 doesn’t look good either since Mark Zuckerberg has made a point to remain the head of the company despite the unpopular policies adopted by him in regards of the way the social network works. On top of all these fires that won’t go away, Facebook still has to deal with numerous hackings, breaches on user’s data. It should e the perfect recipe to make a company go down under. Not to Facebook though, since the users are still using all the products of the social network steadily.
A Brand Under Fire with a Solid Offering
AppAnnie was the one to break the news on Facebook’s number for 2018. They are officially the most used app of 2018, and Messenger ranks as the most downloaded complement to the main app. The related products of the company are still some of the most used apps on the internet. News flash for the uninitiated: WhatsApp, FB Messenger, and Instagram are all owned by Facebook. In what could be seen as a monopoly by many it turns out that four of the top-5 apps used on the internet all over the world belong to the Zuck and while people may not like him, his policies or even the Facebook brand, but they surely love the app to bits.
The report shared by AppAnnie also states that everyone online prioritizes convenience over privacy. Since Facebook has been an app for almost eight years now, people use it out of habit with no regard to the ongoing issues faced by the brand. It’s even safe to say that user thinks that these privacy matters don’t affect them even if they are aware of them. As for figures, just in 2018 had the most number of apps downloaded worldwide, with almost 194 billion apps finding their way to phones and tablets. Fifty percent of the traffic was from Asian countries. That same fifty percent figure applies to social media apps featuring the main four, while the remaining fifteen percent of that figure was directed at video apps like Netflix. The remaining figures belong to video games.
The New Audience is in the Third World
This shift in the market has been coming slowly and steadily since the growth of apps usage comes from younger audiences in large markets such as India, China, and Brazil. Most of these nations have deals in place with foreign corporations as well as local ones to manufacture and sell low-priced smartphones. Most of the times the average uses have close to a hundred apps on their phones. Even with new apps being created each day and a lot of them offering enhanced functionality of existing products the big players remain the same, mostly because they have built a solid audience over time. Names like Snapchat, Spotify, and Netflix still mean something even in the sea of alternatives.
It also helps that most of these apps are “free” in a sense, since they make their revenue from advertising, except for gaming. This particular market is still regarded as the most profitable in the field since it has been determined for every dollar spent on apps worldwide, at least 75 cents go to a game.