Leading Pharma companies strive, but most of them fail, to have a significant impact on the mHealth app market. In fact, some have released more than 100 public apps available for iOS and Android with which they have generated only limited reach.
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This is one of the results of the new report “Pharma App Market Benchmarking 2014” which has been published in October 2014.
Each of the leading Pharma companies offers 60 apps in the Apple App Store and Google Play. In comparison, a typical mHealth app publisher that has just 1-2 mHealth apps placed in these stores (see: “mHealth App Developer Economics 2014” free report).
With all these apps, Pharma companies have created only little reach. In summary the leading Pharma companies have been able to generate 6.6m downloads since 2008 and have less than 1m active users. Given their dominant position in the healthcare market, the investment made into app publishing and the spectacular success stories of garage-type mHealth app publishers, the Pharma companies app portfolios’ performance is disappointing.
The app publishing activities of Pharma companies differ in size, reach, the use cases (reference, fitness, medical condition management). The Pharma app publishers can be clustered into three groups: The Niche players, the Still Trying, who publish many apps but so far have not been really successful, and, finally, players who have already achieved some First Success.
Comparison and analysis of the app activities of the top 12 Pharma companies gives clear hints why the performance has not been as spectacular as one would suspect.
Other potential reasons why the Pharma companies have not been particularly successful in app publishing is the way Pharma companies organize their app business. In fact, the leading Pharma companies use up to 17 (Novartis) different app publishing entities. A relatively extensive network of app publishing entities means that a globally aligned app category focus and reuse of existing concepts and knowledge is hardly possible.
Finally, Pharma companies should also question their role in the mHealth app economy: is it a good strategy to develop and publish the next 700 apps in the next five years? There are other roles (e.g. mHealth data aggregator, mHealth app incubator, partnering) that might be better suited for Pharma.
There is much more on how Pharma companies make use of the mobile app channel in the “Pharma App Market Benchmarking 2014” report. Read more here
Why do you think Pharma companies don’t succeed in the app economy? Please feel free to share.
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