Top-5 Businesses That Are on the Rise in the Era of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world economy. A lot of businesses suffered huge losses; many small and medium-sized companies couldn’t recover from forced downtime and went bankrupt. Even major corporations reported on a severe decrease in revenue. That being said, some sectors of businesses showed significant growth. Let’s review top-five industries, which managed to adapt to the conditions of the pandemic.

Online Education

Most countries in the world faced the issue of full or partial lockdown. Quite expectedly, few conventional edu institutions coped with new challenges. Even though schools and colleges tried to apply various tools for remote learning, such as Zoom or Google Classes, the effectiveness of the educational process turned out rather low for some evident and non-evident reasons:

• teachers have no experience in organizing remote classes;
• schools lack proper educational materials that can be accessed remotely;
• there is no effective system or remote monitoring and control;
• Most traditional school tests and quizzes are not adapted for doing online.

As a result, many educational entities have come to understand that they need a reliable and convenient online platform – a website or a mobile app. This explains a rapidly growing demand for e-learning app development.

Meanwhile, existing e-learning platforms that were initially adapted for online classes enjoy a noticeable increase in popularity. Thus, the number of active users of the Khan Academy has grown by 250%, while the audience of Unacademy has tripled.

Telemedicine

Healthcare is among the industries that were impacted by coronavirus most. Firstly, with a prominent focus on COVID-19 treatment other spheres were left almost unattended. Secondly, during the coronavirus lockdown, many clinics are closed. Finally, visiting a doctor, one is risking to get infected. That is why telehealth is gaining popularity at an exponential level.

In a general sense, telemedicine includes all kinds of medical services provided remotely – primarily, via web mobile apps. Of course, they can’t replace traditional medicine; however, online video consultations with doctors have become very popular. Thus, the PushCare online service has registered a 70% growth, while Amwell reports about an increase in its app use by 158%. If you’ve ever thought about telemedicine app development, now it’s just the right time for bringing this idea to life.

Streaming Services

The pandemic forced millions of people around the world to stay at home all the time. Needless to explain why the popularity of content streaming services has grown dramatically. The vast majority of people tend to watch videos when they have nothing to do. As a result, platforms like Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Disney+ faced an unpreceded growth of active users. More than that, many popular platforms had to descale the definition of video broadcasted temporarily to provide more bandwidth and prevent the site collapsing.

Food Delivery

The restaurants that switched to food delivery early benefited from the total lockdown. Statistics show that during the pandemic, people began to use delivery services much more intensively. Thus, in the UK, around 60% of young people (up to 24 years) increased the frequency of using food delivery services in March.

A shining example of a globally recognized delivery brand is Uber Eats. The number of its partners has increased more by more than tenfold after the beginning of the pandemic. They even had to hire more drivers to be able to fulfill all the orders.

Uber offers pretty beneficial terms of cooperation to restaurants. On average, it charges 30% of the meal price for the delivery. So, developing a food delivery app is a good idea if you don’t want your restaurant to bear losses during the lockdown.

Online Retail Stores

That’s not a secret that online retailers are a popular and convenient alternative for a conventional store. However, coronavirus forced even major offline businesses to shift their services to the World Web. According to the COVID-19 Commerce Insight portal, the total revenue generated by e-Commerce increased by 37% if compared to the same period of 2019. The total number of online orders has increased by 54%.

When it comes to particular regions and countries, the figures are even more impressive. Thus, the total growth in e-commerce revenue statistic looks like the following:

• Canada – 133%;
• the USA – 42%;
• Australia – 86%;
• Germany – 40%;
• the UK – 50%;
• Sweden – 50%.

An increase in the number of online orders by countries looks as follows:

• Canada – 200%;
• the USA – 50%;
• Australia – 104%;
• Germany – 68%;
• the UK – 133%;
• Sweden – 23%.

Top-notch e-commerce websites and web apps help improve customer experience. No surprise online store development is one of the most demanded services.

Tips on Enhancing Business in the Era of COVID-19

Unfortunately, not every business can be restructured to survive under the circumstances of the COVID-9 pandemic. It’s hard if not impossible to find a solution if your business relates to tourism, air flights, traveling, and sports. However, a lot of companies can be optimized not to say rescued even in these rapidly changing conditions.

• If you are engaged in the sphere of education, consider creating an e-learning platform. It will add effectiveness to the communication with students and boost the overall efficiency of the educational process.
• Those running a healthcare business should thing of creating a mobile medical application. It will save time for both your patients and you. Moreover, under the current circumstances, online doctors' consultations are safer.
• If you are thinking of launching a content streaming platform or expanding an existing one, now, it’s the best time for this. Just imagine, popular streaming services received over 50 million new subscribers for just a couple of months! It’s definitely one of the most profitable niches around.
• Food delivery is another industry, which is on the rise right now. Owners of restaurants must consider the possibility of launching their own delivery services and stop wasting money on third-party agents.
• An online store is a must-have for retailers. If you still don’t have one, it’s high time to make it right now. Doing shopping online is a global trend – don’t miss it.

The COVID-19 pandemic is not the best time for the global economy. However, there’s no reason to be desperate. Think about how you can optimize your business now, and maybe, you'll suddenly discover new opportunities.