The mental health and wellness category is the highest-grossing
Popular interest in mental health and wellness is increasing. More media items mention mental health and there are greater search numbers for such issues. Not surprisingly, more apps are designed to help people learn about their minds and emotional wellbeing.
Meditation and apps focused on overall mental health are gaining momentum. Several studies support this trend including CB Insights’ latest report for Q1 and Q2 in 2019.
Two of the most popular apps in this category have been continuously ranked among the top-grossing fitness apps in both Australia and other parts of the world. As of August 2019, Calm holds first place with Australian iOS users and second with Australian Android users. Headspace tops the Android list and is ranked fifth in the iOS list. Source: App Annie
As we mentioned in our post on health and fitness app developers, these two apps account for 90 per cent of all revenue in the meditation app category.
Bloom, Centr, and Fabulous are also among the top-grossing mental health and wellness apps in Australia. The situation is similar in the US, Calm and Headspace hold top five positions for both iOS and Android with other mindfulness apps occasionally appearing on the list.
The benefits of meditation and other wellbeing habits have been increasingly mentioned on media, so people want to give it a try, and now they can do so at any time and virtually from anywhere in the world through a mobile app. This provides flexibility, but also a sense of psychological safety and security as people can control what practice they will engage with and for how long.
There are, of course, downsides of this trend, since professional human guidance and mental health support can’t be fully replaced by what mobile apps can offer. I think this is the only issue that can eventually hinder the trend, but human creativity and innovation are unstoppable and new apps will eventually satisfy people’s need for more interactive and professional wellbeing support.
Vanessa Dias (thewellbeingblogger.com)