Russian market for mobile applications for business and the public sector. TAdviser 2024 review

The mobile application market has undergone significant transformations due to the need to digitalize processes and the emergence of new challenges, business and the public sector are actively introducing mobile applications to manage remote employees, optimize logistics processes, automate warehouse operations and improve the quality of client service. These changes not only increase productivity, but also open up new prospects for growth and development.

At the same time, restrictions on access to international platforms and technologies force companies to develop local solutions and adapt their products to new realities.

As part of this review, we conducted an analysis of the current situation, and also reviewed key technological trends characteristic of the business and public sector mobile application market in 2024.

The mobile app market has faced a number of major challenges in recent years. One of them is blocking applications in the App Store and Google Play. This, according to the CEO of the Stratosphere web integrator Konstantin Elistratov, significantly influenced the development of the market:

The mobile development market has shrunk significantly on the big business side due to the blocking of storks. They have greatly reduced plans for the development of mobile applications and are only posting the most critical updates, as there are problems with delivering updates to users.

However, as the co-founder of the studio for custom development of web and mobile services DNA Team Anton Tarasenko noted, the Russian market for custom development for business and the public sector showed steady growth. At the same time, the public sector increased its share thanks to the introduction of national digital projects.

The head of the mobile development department of the IT company SimbirSoft Andrei Lezin also pointed out the growth of the market:

In 2023, the Russian market for custom development of mobile applications for business and the public sector showed impressive growth. The total revenue of 35 leading development companies increased by 50%, reaching 30.8 billion rubles, compared to 20.6 billion rubles in 2022.

Such growth, according to a representative of the developer company Infotech Integrator, shows that companies and government agencies have begun to actively introduce digital technologies to improve the quality of customer service and optimize internal processes.

At the same time, Konstantin Popandopulo, the main trend, as noted by the STO of the Umbrella IT web and mobile application development company, was import substitution. At the same time, the key technological trends, according to Anton Tarasenko, were the integration of mobile applications with ecosystems of large companies, an increase in demand for AI and ML solutions, as well as the growth of projects to automate public services.

The new ranking of the largest developers of mobile applications for business and the public sector from TAdviser took into account revenue from custom development projects. The largest increase in revenue year-on-year was shown by SATEL, moving to second place.

In the top ten, Umbrella IT (10th place) and Yuztech Group of Companies (3rd place) also showed the largest revenue growth. KODE has so far managed to maintain leadership. 65apps (4th place) does not plan to reduce the turnover, so leaders should not relax.

Analyzing the state of the mobile application market in 2024, experts point to its growth in the range of 10-15% compared to the previous year.

However, as Andrei Lezin notes, companies are looking for ways to reduce the cost of developing digital products. So, according to him, no-code platforms and ready-made boxed solutions have gained particular popularity:

Customers are increasingly looking to reduce development costs by choosing no-code platforms and boxed solutions that enable faster product launches.

According to Oleg Chebulaev, CEO of the outsourcing company Mad Brains, in 2024, large-scale investment projects were frozen by large-scale business, and medium-sized businesses seek to quickly respond to trends and solve problems "here and now," without investing multimillion-dollar budgets in development.

Denis Germanenko, CEO of mobile application development company CleverPumkin, also notes this desire to optimize costs:

I can definitely note the tendency to reduce requests for comprehensive development completely from scratch of the entire project infrastructure. We have been observing this trend for a long time, but this does not create difficulties for professional companies to develop in the market. It is important to note that the ability to competently integrate into the customer's existing business processes is a competitive advantage that will lead to long-term cooperation and profitable contracts for both parties.

In addition, as Nikolai Nikolenko notes, CTO of KODE, a company specializing in the development of applications for Android and iOS, to reduce costs and risks when switching to domestic mobile applications, many companies are actively using cloud solutions:

The use of domestic cloud platforms significantly reduces import substitution risks and optimizes costs, providing companies with the necessary resources for sustainable growth. Many companies, given the high cost of servicing their own equipment and the difficulty in updating it, are switching to cloud technologies. Some of them choose to create private clouds.

However, some customer requests remain stable. In particular, as in 2023, interest in AI and ML technologies continues to grow. This is confirmed by the CEO of Globus ITKonstantin Andreev:

Customer requests have become more focused on integrating mobile applications with artificial intelligence, machine learning and smart home applications. Business needs solutions to analyze big data in real time, as well as automate business processes using mobile interfaces. In the public sector, there is an increase in requests for systems for digitalizing public services, improving interaction with citizens and increasing the transparency of administrative procedures.

Igor Kotov, executive director of the company for the development of mobile applications and digital services Technocracy, also shares his observations on this matter:

Business and the state are actively exploring options for how to improve their services using AI. Of particular interest is the introduction of AI into current processes to improve metrics.

Speaking about customer requests, the head of the practice of developing mobile applications "Reksoft" Alexey Artamonov also notes that there are no fundamental changes. However, for the e-commerce sphere, the introduction of a convenient payment method has become critical:

After the departure of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, retailers continue to adapt to new options - a fast payment system, QR codes, one-touch payments from banks, for example, SberPay or Tinkoff Pay. The more payment methods the app offers, the more likely the user will make a purchase. In general, regardless of the industry, popular requests are the development of new features to attract customers or optimization of applications.

Also, one of the most popular requests in business and the public sector, according to experts, is to ensure data security and protection:

Over the past year, the development of mobile applications for business and the public sector has undergone significant changes. The main trend was the desire of customers for digital sovereignty and increased data security, especially in the face of new regulatory requirements, - said a representative of Infotech Integrator.

Sergey Makaryin, Development Director of RuPost (part of Astra Group), adds that if we are talking about the market for mobile applications for business, then we need to look at the EMM segment.

{{quote 'This sector overlays both the active import substitution process and the growth of the EMM market in two-digit CAGR numbers, characteristic of the whole world. Several world EMM leaders who were previously present in Russia left Russia, and in fact the full stack of this direction in our country is now represented by WorksPad, a kind of Total EMM.

We see a demand for all components of the stack: for containerized business applications and management and control of a mobile device, for Mobile Application Management. In general, the processes of replacing Western EMM solutions took place quite smoothly in 2024, the principles of these products are quite familiar to most large companies in Russia. But what can be distinguished as interesting trends noticeable in 2024 is the readiness to more actively consider superapps as protected customers-containers of EMM, the increased interest in the technologies of miniapples and bots as a mechanism for quickly adding the necessary functionality to superapps for employees, - said Sergey Makaryin.}}

In the current conditions in the mobile application market, development companies face various challenges. In particular, as Anton Tarasenko noted, due to the increase in demand for complex projects, DNA Team had to expand its staff. This problem was solved by establishing partnerships with universities and implementing training programs.

Anton Tarasenko also shared that in 2024 the company rebuilt application development processes to meet import substitution requirements and optimized solutions for working with domestic cloud infrastructures. In addition, work was done to implement tools for analyzing and processing big data on local servers.

He noted that in the future the company plans to expand expertise in the field of application development using/, ARVR develop its own technology products and cooperation state with projects.

Globus IT has also faced a number of challenges:

{{quote 'author=Konstantin Andreev, CEO of Globus IT | The main difficulties were associated with the adaptation of developments to new sanctions conditions and the need to work with open source and domestic solutions for system integrations. There was also a need to strengthen internal expertise in the field of cybersecurity. Addressing these issues included active use of domestic operating systems such as Astra Linux, including certain devices that can interact with that operating system. As a result, we have successfully continued to implement major projects in the field of mobile applications for business and the public sector.}}

In response to increased cybersecurity requirements, Infotech Integrator introduced significant changes to its operational processes. There has been a shift to microservice models with local deployment and enhanced data protection measures, including end-to-end encryption and multi-factor authentication.

Additionally, according to a company representative, advanced integration was implemented and flexible APIs were developed. These measures made it possible to ensure the compatibility of the company's solutions with existing corporate customer systems such as ERP, CRM and IAM.

Discussing organizational challenges, the company representative noted that the main one was to accelerate the application development process without compromising quality. To achieve this goal, the company has implemented DevOps practices and improved testing processes.

SimbirSoft has also adapted to the new conditions:

{{quote 'author=Andrey Lezin, Head of Mobile Development at IT company SimbirSoft | Internal employee training, partnerships with leading technology providers and flexible project management methodologies have enabled us to effectively adapt to change and continue to deliver high quality services. In the future, we plan to expand the range of offered solutions, actively implement artificial intelligence, machine learning and VR technologies, as well as strengthen our position in international markets, continuing to provide customers with innovative and effective IT solutions.}}

In turn, Umbrella IT has changed its focus to the development and use of neural networks in products, both locally on the device and in the format of server request processing. As Konstantin Popandopulo notes, among the difficulties are the increased demand for Android developers, as well as the next round of changes in mobile stacks due to the fact that declarative UI comes everywhere to classical approaches:

This leads to the fact that the selection of developers for projects becomes more difficult. Sometimes projects turn out to be too innovative, and sometimes developers with the latest technology stack find themselves unable to support those projects that were recently relevant.

Also, according to Oleg Chebulaev, Russian developers are faced with a challenge in the form of constant changes in rules and restrictions on foreign marketplaces. The cessation of remuneration payments from Google, in his opinion, will finally shift the focus on working with RuStore, which shows positive growth dynamics and is becoming more and more important in the overall technological landscape.

Talking about the problems that the company had to face in 2024, Oleg Chebulaev points to the heterogeneous demand for custom development during the year:

For IT companies that create custom solutions, this means lower margins. Therefore, this year our focus was on optimizing production processes and improving customer service for current customers. In recent years, we are used to growing by 30-50% per year, but this year we have grown by only 15%.

In addition, Mad Brains considers the development of domestic operating systems as a challenge:

{{quote 'author=Oleg Chebulaev, CEO of Mad Brains | This is a complex, large, knowledge-intensive process, but thanks to interaction with the community, solutions for the public sector and business appear. For us, as developers, it was important to retain the opportunity to use our expertise in developing solutions on these platforms. For example, support for Flutter (Dart) appeared on KasperskyOS and Aurora OS this year, which will allow us to participate in creating new projects for Russian operating systems.}}

In addition to the above factors, there is significant competition in the mobile application market. As Vladimir Fedyanov, Business Development Director of Yuztech Group, emphasizes, companies are actively striving to meet customer needs, focusing on optimizing development costs in order to increase process efficiency and reduce costs. According to the expert, competition is also felt among customers, which contributes to the dynamic development of the market:

Under these conditions, every business fights for the attention of the client and his retention. The most important factors in choosing a particular application are fast loading and an intuitive interface. If the service offers complex navigation and demonstrates poor performance, users are likely to go into a simpler and more understandable analogue application.

The fastest growing segment in the mobile application market in 2024, according to Konstantin Andreev, was internal corporate applications, including those related to information security.

A key trend is the use of alternative sites to host applications. As noted, Nikolay Nikolenko for Android users, developers are increasingly publishing their solutions not only in, Google Play but also in stores such as ChineseHuawei AppGallery the Russian one. RuStore However, for owners iPhone , the situation remains difficult:

The lack of official alternatives to the App Store forces companies to look for workarounds or even refuse to create applications for this platform.

In addition, as noted by Andrei Lezin, there is an increase in interest in PWA - progressive web applications that remain available even under the restrictions of application stores.

Experts also note a significant increase in interest in developing applications based on cross-platform frameworks such as Flutter and Kollin Multiplatform. In parallel with this, attention is growing to native development:

{{quote 'author=Alexey Artamonov, head of the practice of developing mobile applications "Reksoft" | In terms of technologies for mobile development, in 2024 I will note the previous dominance of native development for iOS and Android. Cross-platform technologies such as Flutter or Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) are also in demand, but there are fewer requests for development on React Native, since this framework is less modern and productive. As for KMP, many companies are interested in this technology. It is quite easy to adapt Android developers to it, at least they already know the Kotlin language. In general, most projects seek to use the modern stack of technologies and frameworks at the start or make a gradual transition to them. This is due to the fact that modern technologies make development easier and save time. This is also due to the needs of developers in the labor market who want to work on a modern stack.}}

Nikolay Nikolenko notes that developers choose cross-platform technologies to create simple applications. Native development is used for larger solutions:

Technically, the development of two native applications for different operating systems requires the parallel work of two development teams, which significantly increases costs. From a business point of view, this is not always justified. For simple solutions, where the application acts as a thin client without complex logic, cross-platform technologies are more profitable. However, there are challenges when long-term support, development and scaling are required. They are difficult to implement without the use of native technologies.

In turn, Vladimir Fedyanov claims that the development of ML technology affects the development of mobile applications:

The integration of machine learning into the development of mobile applications offers companies and users many advantages that significantly improve the experience of interaction and increase efficiency. For example, this "smart" technology allows you to adapt the user interface (UI) according to the preferences and interests of the client. Also, machine learning can prompt developers to bottlenecks in the application to improve the functionality of the application.

Multifunctional applications - superapps also became a significant trend in 2024. As Vladimir Fedyanov notes, thanks to such solutions that combine the functionality of various services, users can perform their daily tasks in one application. Superapps are also beneficial for business: they include both targeted and interesting services for the user, which helps to retain attention, increase conversion for basic services and direct traffic to additional services.

At the same time, Vladimir Fedyanov points to such a trend as gamification:

The use of gamification in non-game contexts has proven to be a powerful tool in the development of mobile applications, bringing elements to them that make user interaction more fun and interactive. The introduction of game mechanics increases user engagement and promotes loyalty. Interactive tasks, points, level of progress, status, leaderboard - all this involves the user in a kind of adventure and forces him to return to the application daily. Achieving a specific goal for and receiving a reward is immediate feedback from a mobile application and individual communication with the user.

In addition, to increase the level of user engagement, mini-applications in Telegram are actively used:

{{quote 'author=Oleg Chebulaev, CEO of Mad Brains | Telegram Mini Apps connect the best of mobile applications, bots and sites. Several major brands such as Yandex, Samokat, Pyaterochka have already launched their mini-applications in the ecosystem and received cool indicators of user engagement.}}

In general, experts see positive trends in the development of the mobile application market:

{{quote 'author=Denis Germanenko, CEO of CleverPumkin | The outlook is generally not bad. Now there is no feeling that something can happen in the IT field and again significantly stir up the market. And if there are such events, I think that we will all have more important concerns. It is quite curious to see messages and concerns about blocking Apple and Google app stores, you have to work with these concerns personally, with specific leads and customers. I do not recall that someone refused because of such concerns about creating mobile applications, unless, of course, the request does not come from the company from the SDN sheet. But such companies do not stop the development, because they understand that sooner or later the sanctions will be lifted.}}

Cross-platform technology, cybersecurity, user engagement solutions and AI are expected to continue to be in demand. In addition, as Nikolai Nikolenko notes, many companies consider 2025 as the beginning of a full-scale introduction of digital financial assets in Russia and in the world, and are actively developing interesting ideas for their implementation.

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