For entrepreneur: The next big market
An entrepreneur wrote to me: “Few years ago you recommend that we should build mobile apps, especially mobile games. But according to a report there are several million mobile game apps already on the market. Are you still encouraging us to build more mobile game apps even the market is already saturated? What do you recommend now? Please advise.”
Answer: The mobile apps market is still “Hot” but the new trend now is switching from mobile games to healthcare apps. With smartphone, there are healthcare innovations such as mobile apps to track heart rhythms, skin infection, or monitor your health fitness etc. There are thousands of health apps available on the market but most are written in English. Currently my students are building similar health apps to be sold in their countries; they build health apps for Chinese, Korean and Thai. I have reviewed some of them and they were very good. It is possible to do something similar in your language too.
With health apps there are many benefits for users. For example, if you have a skin rash but do not know how serious it is so you go to see a doctor. Last year a student showed me his health app where a person can take picture of the rash using smartphone then download his app to process the image. His mobile app conducts diagnosis and produces the result within minutes: It may recommend users to buy some medical ointment at local pharmacy to treat it or in case of serious, it recommend that you need to see a doctor for further assessment. Other students showed me similar mobile apps that can take blood-pressure readings and alarm users whether they need to pay attention to their high blood pressure. If it is very high then they need to see doctor right away.
There are “Tele-medicine apps” where users can get a medical consultation with a doctor via smartphone (This is very popular in Africa where people who live in remote villages can be diagnosed by doctors in hospital located hundred miles away). It is estimated that since these mobile apps were created, more than five million people were using it and in the near future “Virtual doctor consultation” will be more popular and could replace doctor office visits. The telemedicine mobile apps charged $1 for the use plus the doctor fees (Depend on the symptoms and time, doctor may charge different fees but it still cheaper than an office visit.)
The bigger changes in healthcare technology is “wearable devices” where people will wear devices such as smart watches or smart clothes with sensors that can measure their physical health then send data to their smartphone. The smartphone collects these data on a daily basis then create a personal medical data such as daily blood pressure, food intakes, blood-oxygen and glucose levels, sleeping time, relaxing time, stress, number of steps you walk, and heart rhythm etc. All of these data will be processed by your mobile apps to give you a complete medical record and determine whether you are in good health or may need to pay attention to the way you live. Of course, it will alarm you if it detects problems and advises you to go to see the doctor immediately.
The explosion of health apps only began few years ago but it will be much bigger than the games industry. A doctor who visited my mobile technology class told my students: “The mobile games industry is worth ten to twenty billion dollars but the health apps industry will be ten or twenty times bigger. Many people will not play computer games but everybody will be concerned about their health. Having a “virtual doctor” reside in the smartphone for a few dollars is much better and keep you comfortable about your health. Last year the health apps industry already surpassed the games industry by several million dollars and it continues. Today many games developers are switching to health apps since they can make more money as the market is still wide open.”
Since many developing countries do not have enough medical doctors. Mobile health apps or “virtual doctors” who can help diagnose your health and warn you if something serious would be a great benefit to the society. I am sure soon mobile health apps will become very big. My recommendation to technology students and entrepreneurs: Build more health apps, you can disrupt this market with your creative talents, make money and help a lot of people.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
