Fintech Healthtech Opinion
Mar 21, 2019 ● Kyle Reid
Snowballing Mobile Trends of 2019: Payments, Health & Artificial Intelligence

In 2019 mobile apps will gain significant access and time in our daily lives

In 2019 Mobile Apps will gain significant access and time in our daily lives. Read the trends that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

At this point, smartphones have become a ubiquitous part of our lives. Not only did most people spend 69% of their media time on smartphones in 2018 according to comScore, but another study reveals that, to no surprise, mobile devices are expected to drive about 80% of all online traffic over the next few years.

But the true power and appeal of the mobile platform rests in its versatility. The following 2019 mobile stats and trends reveal an increased emphasis on users in areas of mobile that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago.

Mobile Payments Will See a 30% Increase in Use

A running theme throughout many of these trends has to do with the fact that people aren’t just looking for ways to integrate mobile technology into their lives. They also want to use those devices to replace as many of the “necessary evils” of their analog lives as possible. Case in point: mobile payments. BusinessWire revealed that nearly 2.1 billion people will use mobile wallets to make payments or send money this year, an increase of 30% from just two years prior. In-person mobile payments alone hit $34.160 million by the end of 2019. Digital receipts that take the burden of “what the heck am I going to do with this stupid paper receipt but loose it or have it end up in the trash” are now becoming more popular as debit and credit cards store your email address.

The takeaway from this is clear: not only do people want to be able to use their phones to make payments when shopping, but many people actually prefer it — nearly 30% of them, in fact. About 66% of them surveyed as a part of that aforementioned study said they believe mobile payments will replace physical credit cards and cash by as soon as 2020 — meaning that if don’t make changes to take advantage of this trend, your business might outright fail.

Mobile Health Will Become a $4 Billion+ Market

Another trend has to do with the increased popularity of mobile health apps, spawned in large part by the rise of wearable devices. This global market share in the health sector will account for about $4.4 billion by the end of the year, according to Statista.

The key thing to understand is that this is empowered by both sides of the equation — both personal users and professionals. 93% of physicians already use mobile health technology on a daily basis, while 80% of them use it in ways that directly provide care to patients. Over the last few years about 247 million people used around 40,000 different healthcare apps — a trend that is only going to increase over the next five years.

AI Will Drive Nearly 85% of all Mobile Customer Interactions

Finally, we arrive at the umbrella of artificial intelligence — something that businesses are using to not only increase penetration into the mobile markets, but cut costs and improve customer experiences as well.

Today, about 97% of mobile users are already using AI-powered voice assistants. This is a direct contributor to the fact that, by as soon as next year, about 85% of all customer interactions will be handled without a human at all. Chat-bots alone are helping businesses reduce costs and by 2022, that number will have grown to $8 billion. That represents money that will be funneled back into more essential areas of businesses, all improving on the customer experience people have come to expect.

When taken together, these trends paint a very vivid picture of where the mobile landscape is headed. Smartphones and tablets are no longer “novelty” devices. We’re using them to run our lives; help us shop, play, entertain us and keep us healthy. Businesses are using AI and mobile to save tremendous amounts of money via machine learning methods we would have never been capable of before. INRIX produced a report that traffic cost the US economy 87 Billion in 2018. Hangzhou was one of China’s most congested cities. After implementing AI-assisted traffic based on machine learned data from mobile phone it dropped from 5th to 57th most congested. Platforms like Riff Learning are being used to measure conversational dynamics and offer feedback after video interactions for the benefit of both parties. With AI, machine learning, and deep learning gaining greater widespread adoption in 2019 the world is destined to be a more efficient place.

In the end, it’s important to understand that mobile devices were popular in 2007 but now they run our lives, are listening and are learning new ways to make more time for us. They monitor us and keep us healthy and even help us experience life in new ways. We are more in control of their brand experiences than ever before and successful businesses lean into that fact, not shy away from it. The technology is already there to support those intentions — now, it’s up to you to put them to good use in a surprising and meaningful way.


This article originally appeared in Medium


Article by:

Kyle Reid