Flurry's Insights on the "7 year itch" and What it Means to Developers

Chris Klotzbach, Director Flurry from Yahoo, reached out to us to talk about the affect of “seven year itch” on the mobile industry, focusing on how Flurry has seen mobile growth plateau over the last 7 years.

ADM: At your Mobile Developer Conference in February, Flurry shared that mobile growth is plateauing. Can you elaborate on that more?

Klotzbach: In 2015, overall app usage grew by 58%, driven largely by personalization, media and productivity apps. In fact, every segment of the industry grew, besides gaming. But, as we reflected on the last seven years of what’s been a fantastic mobile revolution, it became apparent that we are entering the seven-year-itch in the mobile world. 

Looking back to 2009, year-over-year growth session rates have declined. Year-over-year smartphone sales have declined as well. So as we look at these trends, it’s become very clear to us that we’re gearing up for the next phase of the mobile revolution - what we’re calling Mobile 2.0.

ADM: Why do you think mobile growth has slowed?

Klotzbach: Every time you see a huge increase, like we’ve seen over the past consecutive seven years, there has to be a leveling of the field. And that’s essentially what we’re seeing now. Wall Street thinks that hardware is on the decline due to saturation; it’s the sign of a maturing industry. But not all is lost. With this industry pause, we’re seeing a moment in time where software has the opportunity to move things forward.

ADM: What does this stagnant growth mean for developers who are trying to capture more time from consumers on mobile?

Klotzbach: While the outlook for 2016 may seem depressing, it is actually the time to think and reflect, and it’s the best time to build. Consumers are spending less time in mobile browsers, but more time in apps - so it’s important to create an experience that consumers want to return to.

ADM: Can you share some tips for developers who are trying to retain users in such a crowded space?

Klotzbach: First and foremost, listen to your users. With the app stores, you have immediate feedback from users via ratings and reviews and the ability to understand with each version what users like and don’t like about your app.

Leveraging analytics with features like cohort analysis and funnels is critical to understand what app features are driving engagement and where people may be abandoning the app experience. There are also a lot of inexpensive and effective tools to drive re-engagement, such a push notifications, email marketing and social sharing enablement.  

ADM: You recently launched a Flurry app and some changes to your developer suite. Can you tell us more about the updates?

Klotzbach: We’ve redesigned the Flurry dashboard to be faster and more intuitive, and also introduced a Flurry App for Android and iOS, which we’re really excited about. The app takes all the functionality of the dashboard, and puts it in your hands for access anytime, and anywhere. 

The app was built to take advantage of what mobile does best: alerts, sharing and quick visual references. Whether you want to track new users, dive deep into app usage or be notified when app metrics go up or down, the app harnesses all the power of Flurry Analytics, at your fingertips. 

We also added direct ad serving, which allows developers to directly manage the trafficking, targeting and tracking of ad campaigns. An additional update we’re excited about is Flurry Analytics support for tvOS apps.

ADM: How can developers benefit from these tools?

Klotzbach: Our primary focus is helping developers analyze, advertise, monetize and enhance their apps in order to ultimately drive revenue and grow their businesses. A big part of analyzing your app is understanding user behavior and trends. 

How are users progressing through your app and is there a drop-off point for them? What percentage of users come back to your app? And most importantly, who are your users - what are their behaviors, interests, and intent? The Flurry dashboard and app help developers leverage these analytics for data-driven decision making.

But the power of analytics isn’t just to learn more about your users; analytics are an incredibly effective way to drive monetization. With the addition of direct ad serving, the new Flurry dashboard now allows developers to tackle ad inventory and build stronger relationships with their advertisers.

And while some might think that monetization is a later step in the app lifecycle, we believe the quicker you can understand your users’ behavior, the easier you can build non-disruptive advertising experience for your users.  

ADM: What’s next for mobile?

Klotzbach: In the year ahead, we will be setting the groundwork for the next wave of growth, Mobile 2.0. There are also four key areas Flurry sees as opportunities for growth and iteration: hardware (phablets), media, messaging, and local market services.

With hardware, the next wave of evolution will be driven by phablets. We’ve already seen adoption of these larger devices grow, with time spent on phablets increasing by 334% in 2015 alone. 

Media applications have an opportunity to leverage these larger screens to drive content consumption. For example, in 2015 Flurry saw that the growth rate on News and Media apps use on phablets over indexed by 5.35 times (compared to usage on all other devices).

As for messaging, we’re already seeing this now with the rapid rise of services like Slack, which help people do things like connect with one another and be more productive. This is most clearly seen in the 125% growth in productivity application sessions in 2015.

Lastly, the local market is a space for developers will flock to, especially since it’s an $800 billion market. We got global right in Mobile 1.0, but local wrong. In the next year, the mobile industry will move from the Yelp era to something more akin to local contract-work clearinghouse Thumbtack.