Top 5 Reasons Why 80% of Mobile Apps Fail within First Year

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By: Sagar Sharma

Top 5 Reasons Why 80% of Mobile Apps Fail within First Year (And How to Avoid It)

Is the mobile app development is still a growing industry?

In our opinion, the industry is undoubtedly at its peak right now.

Today, 9 out of 10 people own a smartphone and 10 out of 10 of those people use mobile apps in their everyday lives.

So, that’s good news for businesses considering to build their own mobile app, right?

Well, it’s not.

You see, both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store are jam-packed right now with an abundance of mobile apps trying to be successful all at once.

According to Statista, a combined total of more than 4.42 million apps were available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in August 2019.

Another study by 42matters revealed that a total of 3,214 Android apps are released every day on Google Play Store, while a total of 1,044 iOS apps are released every day on the Apple App Store.

So, even though the number of smartphone users is at an all-time high right now, the immense competition makes it challenging for businesses to survive in the market.

In fact, about 80 percent of mobile apps get abandoned after their first use, according to CIO.

Why? – Well, the truth lies in the mistakes made by businesses while developing their mobile apps.

And in this blog post, we’ve revealed the top 5 reasons why the majority of mobile apps get abandoned and fail within its first year.

If you’re an entrepreneur, startup, business, or an enterprise company who is planning to build a mobile app, you will find this blog post particularly useful.

With that being said, let’s dive right in!

5 Reasons Why Mobile Apps Fail

Below, we’ve shared 5 important factors that generally lead to mobile app failure and possible ways to avoid making such costly mistakes.

1 – Lack of Originality

In the haste and desire to get their mobile apps on App Stores, businesses nowadays duplicate their competitors’ apps, which bear no fruit in the long run and fail.

This is the number one mistake that many businesses are making right now.

The app stores are already oversaturated with similar mobile apps right now. So if you want your app to survive in the market, you need to come up with a very strong value proposition.

In other words, your mobile app must have its own unique value proposition to win users’ in today’s market.

To come up with a UVP, you can start by drafting a vision statement for your mobile app.

Writing a vision statement will help you increase the chances of success and set your mobile app on the path towards the end goal of your mobile application.

2 – Poor User Experience

When developing a mobile app, you need to take care of a lot of different components to provide a great user experience.

For starters, your overall app design must be intuitive and appealing.

Secondly, it should also perform all the basic functionalities easily.

Apart from this, there are a couple of factors that you must avoid such as:

  • Long loading times
  • Difficult features accessibility
  • Slow app performance
  • Long registration process

All these factors result in a poor user experience, which you need to avoid at all costs.

Besides all these basic UX factors, you must also practice design thinking and establishing an in-depth user understanding to learn about their needs and possible ways you can fulfill them through your mobile app.

3 – Failing to Solve a Real-Life Problem

Innovation is supremely important in the mobile app industry.

And as we mentioned in the first point, if you’re simply creating a replica of your competitors’ mobile apps, you’re destined to meet failure sooner or later.

However, if you have a unique, innovative idea that solves a real-life problem for your target audience, then your mobile app is primed to be successful.

On the other hand, if you’re simply creating a mobile app with features and functionalities that already exist in the market, then it will most certainly bring a downfall.

So, come up with a fresh idea, which will entice your target audience and solves their most painful, real-life problems.

4 – Lack of Proper Monetization Strategy

Most businesses believe that if they simply develop a mobile app and market it, they’ll automatically get thousands of regular customers and make a fortune.

In reality, it’s the complete opposite.

Today, mobile businesses who’ve built their mobile apps struggle to survive, and one of the common reasons behind this is the lack of proper monetization strategy.

You see, even if you overcome the first 3 challenges like being original, solving a real-life problem, and providing a great user experience, your mobile app still has higher chances of failing a viable monetization strategy is not in place.

So, before embarking on the mobile app development journey, it’s imperative to research and select the right monetization method for your mobile app.

Fortunately for you, we’ve recently written an extensive blog post on 9 proven app monetization strategies to make money from the app.

Feel free to check out the blog post: 9 Proven Strategies for App Monetization

5 – Too Few or Too Many Features

Another common reason why mobile apps are abandoned after their first use is due to either having too many features or too few.

We’ve seen hundreds of real-life examples where businesses loaded their applications with too many features in the hopes of luring their target users but ended up sending them off to their competitors.

Similarly, if you add too few features (i.e.: less than 5), then there might still be an adverse effect.

So, if you want to hit the sweet spot for the number of features in your mobile app, the best approach is to go with MVP development.

MVP or Minimum Viable Product is a development technique used to build software products with only core features to test the idea in the market and receive feedback from the early adopters.

Conclusion

Any successful app did not rise on the top instantly. Most popular apps like Uber, Spotify, Netflix, etc. started with baby-steps and gradually grew to become the industry leaders that they are today.

Similarly, if you wish to survive and thrive in your niche, start small and scale big strategically. And if you need help, remember that our expert business consultants are always there for you to guide you on your mobile app development journey.

Feel free to reach out to us by filling the contact us form. And in case you’ve any queries, please share it in the comments below.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q:1 – What makes a bad app?

Ans: A bad app is any app that does not meet its target users’ needs and is poor in terms of user experience.

Q:2 – What percentage of mobile apps are successful?

Ans: According to reports, only 20% of mobile apps survive after its first year in the market.

Q:3 – Can a mobile app make you rich?

Ans: Yes. If you’ve built an app that is used by a vast amount of users, solves a real-life problem, and implemented the right monetization strategy.

Q:4 – What are some benefits of an app?

Ans: A mobile app can help to increase visibility, boost brand awareness, provide more value to customers, increases customer loyalty, and many more.

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