Berlin,  November, 25 2015: The  2015  fifth edition  of  the mHealth App Developer Economics   study  -- the  largest  such study published globally   -- finds  that major apps stores   offer   more than 165,000 mHealth apps published by 45,000 companies.
The study   in which more than 5,000 companies  participated,  focuses on the current status of the mHealth app market and provides an outlook of market trends over the next five years.
The research program answers several important questions:  who is behind the 165,000 mHealth apps, what are app publishers’ goals, how do they perform and which trends are they expecting to emerge over the next 5 years?
Says Zuzana Vranova, Senior Research Analyst research2guidance: “Compared to last year the number of participating mHealth practitioners has more than doubled. This indicates the growing interest in mHealth app publishing.”
There is still a lot of hype around mHealth apps evidenced by the growing number of new market entries and an increase in investments pouring into the market. In fact half (54%) of the mHealth app publishers have only recently (post-2013) entered the market.
A typical  mHealth company now has up to 100 employees, and the garage type of “the owners develop themselves” company has decreased in relevance from 15% last year to 8% this year. The share of corporates with more than 5,000 employees has however increased from 13% to 17%.
The mHealth app market is very unique and differs significantly from other app categories in what companies want to get out of their engagement. 53% of mHealth publishers claim that their main motivation is to help people improve their medical conditions. Despite this mainly altruistic attitude, 60% of mHealth app publishers say that they have not been able to reach their goals yet. Low reach is one of the main reason why mHealth app publishers are not there yet.
Chronically ill patients and hospitals are target groups number one and two respectively for the majority of mHealth app publishers today. Physicians are also ranked high but their importance has dropped since last year by 9%.
mHealth apps, when the publishers get it right, are helping the user to change their behavior and mHealth app publishers have a clear understanding of what works and what doesn’t. Gamification for example is not seen as a user engagement strategy that works for mHealth. On the other hand mHealth app publishers rank any integration of HCP feedback or dialogue into the app high in terms of its impact on changing the behavior of the user.
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