Dive Brief:
- New research from German market firm Research2Guidance concludes that few consumers are using diabetic mobile apps because they are too hard to use.
- Only 1.6 million of the world's estimated 382 million people worldwide with diabetes who have access to smart phone had used a diabetic app by the end of 2013.
- The researchers say that many of the 1,100 diabetes-related apps on the market today still rely on manual input of data, don't integrate well with existing blood glucose meters or fail to perform basic tasks such as measuring blood sugar, activity and food consumption.
Dive Insight:
Though consumer uptake of diabetes-related mobile apps may be modest at present, Research2Guidance believes a few factors will drive further adoption of these apps, including reimbursement from payers and the evolution of apps from standalone products to devices that can be bundled with other apps and devices. With these forces already in motion, it seems likely that within the next few years, the number of diabetics using mobile apps will skyrocket.