The UK app market is forecast to hit £31 billion by 2025, according to research carried out by App Annie.
The number of app downloads across the UK increased by 5 percent in 2014 while app revenue in the same period rose 30 percent, this is an indication that people in the UK are beginning to invest more in mobile software.
The UK app market is the largest in Europe and fifth largest in the world.
“Media apps do particularly well in the UK as well as apps that help stream video, TV, and music,” said Olivier Bernard, European VP of App Annie.
“But there are starting to be more retailers using apps well, such as Just Eat, Tesco, and Adidas.”
The most popular apps were games, with Candy Crush being the most downloaded game. Other apps that were popular were BBC iPlayer, Sky Go, Spotify, the Guardian, the Times, and the Telegraph.
The UK is the biggest app-development market in Europe in terms of revenue,ahead of Germany and France, according to recent statistics. In fact, the UK is the fifth biggest market worldwide after the US, Japan, China, and South Korea.
The app industry employs 110,000 people in the UK and there are 61,100 developers who work solely on Apple apps. A lot of these developers are freelance workers, while a fifth are younger than 25, and 1,000 are in school, according to Vision Mobile – a leading market analysis and strategy firm for all things connected.
Vision Mobile expects revenues generated from app development in the UK to increase nearly eight-fold from £4 billion in 2014 to £31 billion by 2025.
“There’s phenomenal growth still to come for the app economy,” said Mark Wilcox, senior analyst at Vision Mobile.
“Most of the major smartphone manufacturers have had research and development centers in the UK for many years, producing a depth of mobile experience in the talent pool.”
