Mobile Developer Population Reaches 12M Worldwide, Expected to Top 14M by 2020

    SANTA CRUZ, CA, October 05, 2016 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The number of developers involved with development of mobile apps reached 12 million in 2016, according to Evans Data Corp's Global Development Population and Demographics Study, the de facto standard in developer population estimates. It also found that the number of developers writing for mobile devices has increased by more than five times since Evans began measuring developer participation in mobile development in 2006, when just slightly less than 2M developers were targeting mobile. At 12M, the population of developers targeting mobile is more than half of the total worldwide population of 21M developers.

The study, which is now in its 20th edition, estimates not only current software developer populations across four major regions and forty different countries, but also overlays global primary research onto the population numbers to show numbers of developers forecast to adopt technologies now and in the future. For example, the number of mobile developers who target Android first is 5.9M vs 2.8M that target iOS as a first platform. Most developers target multiple mobile platforms, so secondary platform targets differ and often include competing platforms. When we look at initial target by region, 2.2M developers target Android first in the APAC region vs just over 500K for iOS, but in North America the order is reversed, with iOS targeted first by more than 200K developers over those targeting Android first.

"Mobile development has really become ubiquitous," said Janel Garvin CEO of Evans Data. "Mobile devices are everywhere, but while most modern applications support mobile devices, not all developers are working on the client target side. Some are server or backend oriented or are concentrating more on the application logic or more and more on newer machine learning implementations, so watching the number of mobile developers move from just under 2 million ten years ago to 12M today just provides a reflection of the use of mobile devices today."

For the general developer population, estimates and projections for growth to 2020 show APAC growing faster than other regions. Growth in India and China are predicted to keep APAC's developer population the highest globally for the next several years.

See the complete Table of Contents and Methodology here: Table of Contents

Evans Data Corporation provides regularly updated IT industry market intelligence based on in-depth surveys of the global developer population. Evans' syndicated research includes surveys focused on developers in a wide variety of subjects.

Copyright 2016 Evans Data Corporation. All other company names, products and services mentioned in this document are the trademarks and property of their respective owners.

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