Custom secure apps are gaining popularity in the enterprise

It looks like organizations are increasingly building custom secure apps. Among Good Powered by BlackBerry customers who are building custom apps, the average organization has developed 3.74 custom apps to help mobilize key business processes. More broadly, Q3 showed a 30 percent quarter-over-quarter increase in app activations and an increase in the number of organizations using multiple apps beyond email.

For the fourth quarter in a row, secure browser led all app categories, growing 57 percent quarter-over-quarter to account for 37 percent of all apps deployed by organizations. Custom apps, secure IM, document access and document editing followed as the next most popular app categories.

While app deployments increased overall, certain industries demonstrated a need for specific apps to meet unique demands. The most aggressive adopter of custom apps was the retail industry, where custom apps were the most popular app category at 40 percent.

For the third straight quarter, the insurance industry also aggressively adopted custom apps (31 percent), while other “knowledge industries” such as financial services (25 percent), business and professional services (15 percent) and energy and utilities (13 percent) also showed widespread use of custom apps. Furthermore, most organizations that build custom apps don’t stop at just one, as 58 percent have built two or more apps.

Government agencies and other public sector institutions focused their mobile initiatives on the document-based workflows that are critical to many e-government processes. In total, 43 percent of all apps in government were either document access or document editing. Public sector also saw a 10 percent quarterly increase in secure browser app activations to 31 percent.

iOS rebounded to regain some of its previous losses in device activations, building its lead from 64 percent to 66 percent. Android market share fell slightly to 31 percent, while Windows dropped to 2 percent.

Heterogeneity seems to have taken hold in the tablet market, as the dominant lead iOS once had now appears to have eroded despite taking market share back from Android and Windows. iOS rose from 64 percent to 71 percent of all tablet activations, while Android and Windows fell to 21 percent and 8 percent, respectively.

iOS ruled in regulated industries for the third quarter in a row, maintaining or growing huge leads in public sector (83 percent), financial services (77 percent), education (77 percent) and insurance (68 percent). After pulling ahead of iOS in high tech for the first time last quarter, Android maintained its lead with 52 percent of all activations in high tech and emerged with a slight lead over iOS in transportation.