50% Of Britons Willing To Pay For Apps, Study Finds

A new study from Simon-Kucher & Partners has further evidenced that smartphone and tablet users across the UK are big fans of apps and buying them is becoming less of a behavioural change for consumers.

The research gathered responses from 1,000 owners of such gadgets to find that 80% download apps on a regular basis. Some 50% of those questioned also said they had made at least one app purchase and around 40% claimed they are willing to pay over £5 for an app. Traditionally, users allocate an average of £2 for their costliest app. Just 20% of the respondents said they are not willing to buy such software.

News apps seem to be more popular among consumers than games apps as they are rated higher in terms of usage; 91% of the respondents said they use apps for getting news against 45% for games. Still, downloading the games apps occurs more often on Britons’ devices – the study found that smartphone and tablet users have eight games and two news apps on their gadgets on average. This suggests that users tend to download games apps on the spur of the moment, for instance to try out a new game, but they rarely come back to it.

App rankings and pricing are the two main factors that guide users in their choice of apps. Consumers also take into account recommendations from family and friends when deciding to download an app.

The large majority of the respondents stated that they download apps one or two times a month, with the trend likely to persist over the next 12 months, according to users’ expectations.