Mhealth market to see strong revenue growth through 2017, study finds

BERLIN — The global market for mobile health app services is expected to reach $26 billion by 2017 as smartphone applications allow the mhealth industry to successfully monetize its services, according to a new report.

Global Mobile Health Market Report 2013-2017, announced Friday by Berlin-based mobile market research firm Research2guidance, found that top mhealth publishers manage to generate more than 3 million free and 300,000 paid downloads in the United States on the Apple iOS platform.

"Our findings indicate that the long-expected mobile revolution in healthcare is set to happen," Research2guidance head of research Ralf-Gordon Jahns said. "Both healthcare providers and consumers are embracing smartphones as a means to improve healthcare."

The study found that in addition to use of mhealth applications by consumers, 15% of them are primarily designed for healthcare professionals, including continuing education, remote monitoring and healthcare management applications. There are currently 97,000 mhealth applications in major app stores, with 42% of them being based on paid business models.

"With the growing level of mhealth applications, only 9% of the total market revenue in the next five years will come from application download revenue," Research2guidance analyst Patrick Houck said. "Eighty-four percent of total mhealth application market revenue will come from related services and products such as sensors."