Baidu index shows that from the beginning of 2021 to the present, the average daily search index of pea pods is 10432, and the average daily search index of AppBao is 65983. Compared with 2017, the search index of pea pods fell by 37%, and the search index of AppBao fell by 46%. Behind the decline in the Baidu index of pea pods and app treasures, it reflects the decline in user demand for related products.
Once upon a time, pea pods, app treasure, PP assistant and other third-party app stores, is the user Android machine main installation of the necessary App, just 3 years, pea pod user volume exceeded 150 million, app treasure rely on WeChat Android version of the update, the number of users is also surging.
But with the passage of time, pea pods and app treasures have become more and more unpopular with Android owners, why is this situation?
Guo Jing's Internet circle believes that the reason why third-party app stores such as pea pods and app treasures are not popular with users is related to several factors.
First, the user experience of the product has declined rapidly. Yu Jun, a well-known product manager, has mentioned in the book "Product Methodology" that "products are the medium of user value exchange", for Android mobile phone users, in the past, app treasure, pea pods can solve the needs of users, provide users with channels to download Apps, and they can fully meet the needs of users.
However, after the number of users reached a certain level, some changes occurred in app treasure and pea pods.
1) Add more features to the product, such as mobile phone cleaning, free novels, short videos, small programs, etc., pea pods, app treasures the reason why they do this is to improve user stickiness, but this also makes the product more and more bloated.
2) When in-app search, personalized recommendation, LBS distribution and other functions fail to try, it is difficult for third-party app stores to innovate in products.
For users, the most difficult thing for Android app stores such as pea pods and app treasures to accept is the messy ads. The App Store didn't launch search ads until recently, and apart from that, it has little disruption to the user experience. The Android third-party app store is trying to "squeeze out the last drop of blood", for example, the application update, when the user update is completed, the system also pushes ads to the user on the update completion page.
In addition, if the user does not turn off the notification, the system will often pop up garbage App push to the user, for the user, if you want to download an App, download it directly, there is no need to rely on the recommendation of the app store.
Android third-party app stores in order to performance and revenue, have to find a way to pull downloads, and the most direct way to pull downloads is advertising, which leads to a rapid decline in user experience, and users' antipathy to it is getting stronger and stronger.
This is very similar to the anti-virus software that was once popular on the computer, security guard, before the user uses these security software, but also to solve some of the problems of the computer, but now the problem is not solved, all kinds of advertisements flying, in the end, the user can only choose not to install any security software.
Second, the user experience of the phone's own app store has caught up. Huawei, Xiaomi, vivo, OPPO and other mobile phone manufacturers have long felt the value of the app store, but before the pea pod, the app treasure took the lead in the software side to seize the opportunity, but the mobile phone manufacturers realized the value of the app store, they strengthened the construction of the app store, which also brought about the improvement of user experience.
Relatively speaking, the mobile phone comes with less advertising in the app store, if you just download an App, Huawei App Market, vivio app store, Xiaomi app store can also meet user needs, pea pods, app treasures are difficult to make differentiated innovation in app download.
In order to fight with the third-party app store, the mobile phone comes with the app store also blocks some of the functions of the third-party app store, for example, the mobile phone App is automatically updated in the WiFi environment, the mobile phone manufacturer directly prohibits the function, if the user wants to directly update the App on the app treasure, pea pod, need to reopen the relevant buttons, and this is both troublesome and will not be for many Android users. Similar to the App Store, the mobile phone comes with the app store In order to ensure the security of the phone, it also conducts a round of security scans for the download of the third-party app store, and it is likely that the user will receive a risk warning.
Third, user demand for long-tail apps has declined. The main function of the app store is to provide users with a channel to download the app, but the demand for downloading the app has declined.
Aurora big data shows that in the second quarter of 2021, the total number of per capita app installs of China Mobile netizens continued to rise, reaching 66 models, and the per capita single-day app usage time was 5.1 hours. Although the total amount has increased, but the inventory of the entire app is very large, CNNIC data shows that as of December 2020, the number of apps monitored in China's domestic market is 3.45 million.
The app that the user wants to download has long been downloaded, and the app that the user does not want to download will also be downloaded through multiple channels, including but not limited to third-party app stores.
The more users do not want to use the third-party app store, the more the third-party app store does not pay attention to the user experience under the influence of traffic and business pressure, so that the third-party app store is likely to fall into an "endless cycle".
At the end of the day, a third-party app store is a tool that addresses the needs of users, and when the tool is not easy to use, users can only give up.