Market for mobile medical apps grows fast

The market for healthcare-related apps for mobile devices has grown and will continue to grow quickly, reveals a new report by Kalorama Information. The company found that the market for mobile medical apps was worth about $150 million in 2011.

Such apps help healthcare professionals with a range of tasks, including education, health management, data management, health information, and other workflow processes. What's more, the medical community reports using smartphones to perform some of the work that would previously have been done on a desktop or laptop computer.

According to the report, Market for Mobile Medical Apps, the overall mobile app market is expected to continue to display strong double-digit growth through 2016. However, the medical app segment of the market will also continue to grow - and at a faster rate. Currently, such apps make up just one to two per cent of the entire market for mobile apps, but Kalorama anticipates that healthcare apps will grow by 25 per cent annually over the next five years, compared with the 23 per cent growth estimated for the standard apps market.

The growing number of healthcare professionals using these apps in everyday business activities is contributing to the market segment growing at a faster rate than some other categories of apps, says the company. However, part of the revenue growth is being driven by prices rather than volume, according to the report - medical apps have a higher price tag than other apps (averaging $15 per app) but the number of downloads is lower than in other categories.