A new report by research2guidance has revealed that this market is growing very quickly.
The forecasts of a new report called “Global Mobile Health Market Report 2013-2017”, which has been released by research2guidance, has shown that the mhealth market is now taking its first steps into commercialization and is growing rapidly in its value.
This means that the industry will now be able to start monetizing its services in a meaningful way.
The report predicted that this will mean, primarily, through mhealth apps. According to the research2guidance head of research, Ralf-Gordon Jahns, “Our findings indicate that the long-expected mobile revolution in healthcare is set to happen.” He then went on to say that “Both healthcare providers and consumers are embracing smartphones as a means to improving healthcare.”
Mhealth apps are already among the most popular and sought after among all of the top smartphone platforms.
The report pointed out that among the estimated 90,000 apps within the mhealth category, 42 percent stick to a paid business model. However, that being said, the services market in this area is not expanding in its profitability as the exclusive result of paid downloads. In fact, over the next 5 years, the report predicts that only 9 percent of the total market revenue will result from downloaded app revenue.
Instead, according to analyst Patrick Houck, within the total mhealth app market revenue, 84 percent will be generated by related service such as sensors and other products. The firm behind the report is predicting that the services in this market will have broken the $26 billion mark worldwide by the close of 2017.
This is very promising news for a large number of businesses that have already been taking their first steps to establish themselves within the mhealth market. This includes not only developers, but larger organizations such as national pharmacy chains. The appeal to consumers for health related applications is clear, so it is now up to companies to find their positions and angles in order to stand out from what will likely soon be a tremendous space that is about to become highly competitive.