App market growth

A recent report found that Pakistan was the fastest-growing app market in the world, making evident how youth and tech-driven the country’s future is becoming. App downloads were up 35% compared to a year earlier — almost three times the rate of increase seen in China, which was second on the list compiled by Data Darbar. All other markets, including India, which was third, saw a growth of less than 10%. While Pakistan’s market leaders in downloads were all foreign-made apps, it was heartening to see local apps topping the active users charts.

Downloads were led by social media apps such as Whatsapp, Whatsapp Business, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, and video and photo editing software for these platforms — CapCut, a video editor by TikTok creator ByteDance, was the most downloaded app. But the active users chart was dominated by mobile service providers’ apps, mobile wallets, and online shopping apps — three cellular providers’ apps, four mobile wallets and banking apps, two online shipping apps, and an Islamic literature app make up the top 10. Meanwhile, the most popular games by far were digital versions of a classic, as two different Ludo games accounted for 14 million downloads. However, the report also had some veiled critique of the quality of apps being produced locally, as despite being second in terms of “the number of outstanding active apps by local publishers ... in terms of traction and usage, very few of the locally developed apps make it to the top charts in Pakistan.” Simply put, the industry is prioritising quantity over quality.

While this approach may have worked in a closed market, when competing against developers around the world, quality is the only way to retain users and make profits. Unfortunately, while some local developers do have the potential to put out world-class apps, the economic climate is making it tougher to retain talent or develop anything that depends on international collaboration.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2023.

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