You're listening to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcast on the European App Economy.

Ten years have passed since the first apps appeared and today they have become the pull star from millions of European citizens who use them to navigate through life with their fingertips. But how is the app economy developing in Europe and what are its main challenges and opportunities?

Stay with us.

There's an app for that. It's more than just Apple's marketing mantra.

Apps have become the modern lifestyle. We use them to monitor our sleep, tune our instruments,

to do our shopping, among a million other things. With dozens of apps installed on our phones,

Europeans often spend more time on mobile apps than browsing the internet or watching TV.

And the app economy seems to be far from reaching the saturation stage.

Actually, it is expected to grow globally to over 6 trillion euros, almost fivefold from

just over 1 trillion in 2016, and by 2021, the number of global app users is likely to double

and reach 6.3 billion people, so business is clearly booming for this sector.

Driven by this unstoppable demand, the European app economy is doing rather well

and accounts for just under a third of revenues from the global market.

As coverage grows, data connections improve and mobile devices become more affordable,

clusters of app developers are consolidating in countries such as the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy and Finland,

creating well-paid jobs, value and innovation in the digital economy.

According to one study, in 2017, the EU has for the first time overtaken the US in the number of jobs created,

even if app economy jobs in Europe are still slightly less significant than in the US.

However, there's still barriers to the growth of the sector, including limited availability

of finance, shortage of digital skills, and the need to constantly upgrade infrastructure

and improve access to data. Let's look into all of these.

When in 2014, the European Commission asked app developers what were the main obstacles

...