Demand for video conferencing apps for both business and personal use has grown tremendously during the coronavirus outbreak but according to a new report from App Annie, business conferencing apps hit their biggest week ever in March.Between March 14 and 21, video conferencing apps for business were downloaded 62m times as more employees made the transition to working from home.The surge in business app downloads across Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store during that week represented a 45 percent increase from the number of apps downloaded during the previous week.
App Annie's report also showed that business apps experienced the highest growth among any category across both app stores that week.Increased adoption of apps such as Google's Hangouts Meet, Microsoft Teams and Zoom Cloud Meetings led to much of the growth in business app downloads seen in March.Zoom is quickly becoming a household name and the app topped the charts worldwide in February and March.
During the week of record downloads, Zoom was downloaded 14 times more than the weekly average during Q4 of 2019 in the US.
The app was also downloaded more than 20 times Q4's weekly average in the UK, 22 times more in France, 17 times more in Germany, 27 times more in Spain and 55 times more in Italy.During the same period in March, Google's Hangouts Meet also saw strong downloads in the UK, US, Spain and  Italy with 24 times more downloads in the UK, 30 times more downloads in the US, 64 times more downloads in Spain and 140 times more downloads in Italy when compared to the average weekly downloads in Q4.At the same time, Microsoft Teams usage also grew worldwide when compared to Q4 2019 with 15 times more downloads in Spain, 16 times more downloads in France and 30 times more downloads in Italy.Senior insights analyst at App Annie, Lexi Sydow explained how video conferencing apps can allow users to work and socialize online during this trying time in a blog post, saying:“As people face uncertain timelines for the length of social isolation, video conferencing apps have the potential to vastly influence our daily habits — breaking down geological barriers and fostering the ability to work and socialize relatively seamlessly.
It is an unprecedented time for the world and an incredibly dynamic time for mobile — we are seeing shifts in consumer behavior surface daily across virtually every sector.”Via TechCrunch