WASHINGTON— The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) today released an important update to the 2017 report, “The Rise of the Australian App Economy”. Our latest report shows the Australian App Economy has room to grow, and a broad base of opportunity continues to stay open for developers, entrepreneurs, and others who want to enter the economy and expand innovation. Based on our methodology that combines government occupational figures with comprehensive data on posted job openings, we estimate that Australia has 136,000 App Economy jobs as of January 2019, up from 113,000 in March 2017.
It’s not an exaggeration to speak of a global App Economy, with an army of app developers writing mobile applications for billions of users. For businesses, apps have become the essential front door for their customers, providing access to everything from shopping to customer service to banking services to entertainment to information to essential health knowledge. Additionally, according to our report, a 20 percent gain in App Economy jobs is partly driven by an increase in the overall number of ICT professionals, as reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, combined with a rising share of IT job openings that require App Economy skills, such as knowledge of iOS or Android.3
The growth of the App Economy is particularly important for Australia, because mobile apps can be exported globally. Australian-based apps such as Stashd, Procreate, iAuditor, Canva, and Invoice2go have significant global user bases. These revenue-generating global exports may be contributing to the rapid rise of Australian exports of information services in recent years.
You can find the full report by clicking here.
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