Pattern of app usage among users – prevailing scenario
The smartphone user base has experienced an exponential boom in the past few years to reach 2.97 billion users worldwide. A recent study notes that an average US adult spends about 3 hours 10 minutes on his phone every day. 90% of mobile time is spent on applications. The increase in smartphone users and their usage pattern indicates that the mobile screen is the more preferred screen than the computer. The usage pattern is also a clear indicator that businesses vying for their customers’ attention must adopt a mobile strategy.
The world of native applications – challenges galore
Though users spend 90 percent of their mobile time on applications, they are quite picky. Users spend 77% of their time on only three apps. What’s more, 96% of that time is spent on their ten favorite apps. The interest in applications makes the mobile application space highly competitive. The chunk of these applications is native applications primarily categorized into Android or iOS apps. Statista 111 thousand applications are released on the Google Play Store every month, making it the most prominent online store for applications. Following toe is the Apple App Store, which has an approx 1.8 million applications available for download. The numbers are proof of the stiff competition applications face to garner interest among users and survive. Besides the stiff competition, many other reasons can sometimes weigh against building a native application. One of the foremost considerations a business looking to upgrade their mobility capabilities the native way has to address is cost followed by compatibility. Native applications are platform-specific as they are developed for a specific platform, either Android or iOS, and can limit your reach to a particular platform user set. Maintenance and upgrades can again have a significant impact on your spending.
A progressive mobile experience – the solution
Progressive Web Apps – PWA has been a boon for businesses trying to make immense in the mobile age. A PWA is built and lives on the web but has capabilities similar to the native apps. The look and feel or how the app behaves is quite similar to native apps.
Progressive web apps provides easy optimization of your website to enable mobile experience for your users irrespective of the platform. It renders a seamless experience across iOS and Android platforms and does not require uploading on any app stores. This also eliminates the need for users to install updates on their phones. Every time there is a new version of the app, it just needs to be deployed on the webserver and is automatically available to the users when they visit next.
Benefits
World-renowned businesses utilizing PWAs are reaping some impressive benefits that demonstrate that PWAs are an excellent proposition for online entities looking to initiate their journey and association with their users on their mobiles. Businesses are looking at an economical solution to make their foray on the mobile or companies already having a native app but looking to expand their reach using a web-based mobile app.
The following compilation lists out the businesses that have adopted progressive web apps to garner impressive gains.
Renowned publisher – Forbes
Headquartered in New York, Forbes is an American business biweekly. Steve Forbes is the editor-in-chief of the widely recognized magazine. Two of its distinct offerings are the Forbes 400 that lines out the richest people in the world and Forbes 500 that lists out the top performing companies in the world. Forbes launched its mobile PWA couple years ago and has experienced a favorable outing.
- 0.8 seconds average load time, faster loading
- 100% increase in user engagement
- 43% more time spent in user session
- Increase in scroll depth by 3 times
- Advertisement views up by 20%
- Average size of web pages reduced from 2MB to 30KB
Social media biggie – Twitter
A popular microblogging platform launched in 2006, Twitter is the second most successful social media platform after Facebook. Twitter introduced Twitter Lite, a PWA variant for smartphone users. An optimized version of the app Lite requires less data and storage space and loads quicker even on slower connections. The app occupies 1 Mb space on the device.
- 65% increase in pages per session
- 75% increase in tweets
- 20% decrease in bounce rate
- Loads quickly on 2G and 3G networks
- Enables optimal utilization of data by only downloading content that the users clicks on
- Significantly smaller size of the PWA app at 600 Kb compared to the size of the 23.5 Mb native app
Global coffee house chain – Starbucks
Starbucks, an international coffee house chain and a popular brand, wanted to create a web based application. An app with dynamic functionalities and a native feel. They wanted to integrate a user-friendly ordering that could be seamlessly accessed through a url without having to install the app. Starbucks foresightedness to invest in a progressive app provided it with some healthy benefits.
- High on performance, intuitive app for its users
- Ability of the app to function across regions with low or inconsistent internet connectivity
There are many other international businesses that have benefited going the PWA route. You can read about them here. Do you know of a business that has benefited immensely using progressive web applications? Share it with us in the comments section.
Author
