According to IHS-owned market research firm iSuppli, revenues from major mobile app stores will grow 77.7% to $3.8 billion this year. iSuppli estimates that major app markets like those offered by Apple, Google, Nokia and RIM sold $2.1 billion worth of apps in 2010 and just $830.6 million in 2009. “With consumers continuing to show robust, unflagging interest in downloading games and other applications to devices like smart phones and tablets, collective revenues from the four stores will climb sharply this year,” said IHS mobile media analyst Jack Kent in a statement. According to the report, consumers’ hunger for mobile apps won’t be slowing down any time soon. The firm suggests that app store sales will continue to grow linearly — as most analysts these days seem to believe all growth is linear — with revenues ballooning to $5.6 billion in 2012 and $8.3 billion in 2014. Hit the break for the full press release.

Revenue for Major Mobile App Stores to Rise 77.7 Percent in 2011

May 3, 2011

JACK KENT

Combined revenues from the four major mobile application stores run by Apple Inc., Google Inc., Nokia Corp. and Research In Motion Ltd. will leap 77.7 percent in 2011 to $3.8 billion, with the Apple App Store projected to eat up a gargantuan three-quarters share of the total market, according to new IHS Screen Digest research.

“With consumers continuing to show robust, unflagging interest in downloading games and other applications to devices like smart phones and tablets, collective revenues from the four stores will climb sharply this year,” said Jack Kent, analyst, mobile media, for IHS.

Combined revenue for the four stores in 2011 will rise from $2.1 billion in 2010 and from $830.6 million in 2009. Application store revenues were first tracked in 2008 in a market worth just $206.01 million, with the Apple App Store the only viable presence at that time.

Total download revenue from games and other applications are projected to continue rising in the next few years, jumping to $5.6 billion in 2012, $6.9 billion in 2013 and $8.3 billion in 2014. The four app stores are the major players at present in the field, but other sites, such as Microsoft’s Windows Marketplace, conceivably could gain enough size and presence in the future to shake up the market.

Apple App Store to Account for Three-Quarters of Market
To no one’s surprise, the Apple App Store continues to head off all competition. Projected figures for the Apple App Store this year call for revenue of $2.91 billion, up 63.4 percent from $1.78 billion in 2010. Given that Apple devices such as the iPhone, iPod and iPad are the market leaders in their field, the company’s App Store is expected to take in 76 percent of revenue this year and retain 60 percent market share by 2014, despite efforts by the other stores to match Apple’s ability to monetize its users, IHS believes.

Apple also will lead the way with revenue gained from in-app purchases—or additional purchases made within a paid application, such as bonus game levels—which will serve as a key growth driver for revenue up to 2014.

Google Android Market on the Rise
Making a serious bid for consumer dollars, however, is Google’s Android Market, which will see the fastest growth in 2011. Android Market revenue will soar 295.4 percent this year to $425.36 million, on its way to become the second-largest application store.

The ascension of Google Market to runner-up position means a fall in ranking for last year’s second-place finisher, Research In Motion (RIM). This year, the BlackBerry App World will finish third with expected revenue of $279.11 million. Despite 69.2 percent growth in 2011 that will rival Apple’s App Store revenue expansion, BlackBerry App World will have the fewest downloads, numbering about 772.2 million, compared to a staggering 10.3 billion downloads for the Apple App Store and 5.8 billion downloads for Android Market.

In last place this year will be the Nokia Ovi Store, with $201.48 million in anticipated revenue and 1.1 billion downloads from Nokia’s Symbian smart phone users. Both the RIM and Nokia app stores will continue over the next few years to be relegated to the two lower positions as Apple and Google remain the dominant players, IHS Screen Digest figures show.

The total number of downloaded applications in 2011 is expected to reach 18.1 billion by year-end, compared to 9.5 billion last year, 3.1 billion in 2009 and 419.2 million in 2008. By 2014, downloaded applications will top some 33 billion.

The only webOS-related news we really want to hear out of HP’s camp is here’s when the Pre 3 and TouchPad are launching, but we suppose last week’s quiet App Catalog update is also welcome news. The new version of HP’s webOS App Catalog features several changes, some more important than others. The first thing users might notice after updating is the presence of HP’s logo on the Catalog icon — an inevitable branding change that should probably have happened quite some time ago. More important, however, are two key new additions: promo code support, which will allow users to download paid apps for free with a code obtained from a developer, and carrier billing support, which will allow paid apps to be billed along with monthly cell phone service charges. The new version of the App Catalog is also said to be a bit more responsive, and it requires webOS 2.0 or higher to run.

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Good news for webOS owners as Palm has extended its half-off application sale until July 23rd. Slated to end on July 9th, this sale slashed the price of almost all apps in the app catalog by 50%. Lest you start worrying about the financial implications of such a sale on the struggling webOS developers, this developer-friendly promotion is being subsidized by Palm with each developer receiving the full price for every purchase. So webOS owners what are you waiting for? Fire up the app catalog on your handset and support the webOS developer community by taking advantage of these two extra weeks of discounted applications.

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In a webinar for developers on Thursday, Palm announced that it will be launching a developer-friendly promotion on all paid apps in the App Catalog. Starting June 18th and ending on July 9th, the promotion will slash the price on every paid app in the App Catalog by 50%. In a move sure to please developers, Palm will subsidize the promotion and pay developers the full retail price for each app purchased. WebOS owners looking to save some cash and support the webOS developer community can do so by purchasing a few dozen apps when the promo kicks in.

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In a statement on its blog Saturday, Palm has apologized to webOS users for a recent bug in its App Catalog which made it virtually impossible for users to download both free and paid applications. After selecting to purchase an app, end users received a pop-up notification stating “Install Failed” upon the completion of the download. The following is Palm product manager Joe Hayashi’s statement:

If you’ve experienced any issues downloading or updating apps from the Palm App Catalog recently, rest assured that Palm is actively working to remedy the situation. If you’ve purchased an app, the transaction has been properly recorded and as soon as this issue is resolved, you’ll be able to access all apps you’ve purchased (or, in the case of free apps, requested to download).

If patience is not one of your strong points, the folks at PreCentral are reporting that going into device settings, turning off network time and reverting the devices calendar to any date before Saturday, May 10th will temporarily remedy the issue. Of course we can’t imagine this work-around will be too attractive since it will mess with people’s calendars, but as the saying goes “desperate times, desperate measures.” Luckily, the work around isn’t necessary as Palm has just fixed the issue.

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WebOS devices have long since extended their reach beyond the cozy confines of United States, but unfortunately paid apps have yet to be made available as they are in the US. This could all change in one week’s time, however, as Palm has notified developers that they will be able to sell apps through the App Catalog in Canada, the UK, Ireland, Germany, Mexico and Spain starting on the 31st of March. If all goes according to plan, a large number of paid apps will be available on day one simply because Palm has made it easy for developers to get in on the international market: resubmit the app, check off where you want it to be sold and relax while the app is rushed through the approval process.

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Not exactly the most surprising news, but in short, the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus got official moments ago, with Verizon Wireless signing on to carry both devices (at a rumored 200,000 initial units each) starting January 25th. Pricing was not announced. In addition to the two refreshed devices, which add more memory, a refined and refreshed look as well as Wi-Fi on the Pixi, Palm also announced some SDK improvements. First off, there’s a new PDK (plug-in development kit) that will allow game developers to start making great 3D games, and starting today, you’ll see games start appearing in the App Catalog from publishers like EA Mobile.

Switching gears, Palm also said that Flash support via a plugin would be appearing shortly in the App Catalog and there are more goodies like video recording (with Apple-stolen) video editing capabilities, and additional sharing functionality. Thoughts?

Yes, webOS junkies, you did indeed read the headline right — paid apps have finally started to go live in the App Catalog after many months of anticipation. The last time we looked we only saw Air Hockey which costs $1.99, but we’re pretty sure that Palm is going to do its best to rapidly accelerate the roll-out.

Thanks to everyone that sent this in!

We’re not sure who should be more excited about this news, to be honest. On one hand, developers can finally take a major step toward actually making money from webOS. On the other hand, Pre owners are now a giant leap closer to having more than 30-something apps. It really could be a toss up. The bottom line is the slow and painful ordeal that is Palm’s handling of all things app-related took a step forward today as Palm announced to developers that paid app submissions to the App Catalog are now being accepted. While paid apps aren’t slated to hit the App Catalog for a while yet, any news is good news at this point. So, Pre fans, what are some apps you’re desperately hoping to see pop up in the App Catalog once the faucet is finally turned on?

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We hope you’re sitting down, Pre people… Believe it or not, there’s a new app in the App Catalog this morning! More than one even! First up, the star of the show, Open Table has released its ever-popular reservations app for the Palm Pre. For those who aren’t familiar with the Open Table service, it allows you to find restaurants in your area and reserve a table at a time of your choosing all from within the app. You can even invite attendees with Open Table’s Pre app and it will add the reservation details to your calendar for you. Sweet. The app is free of course, since Open Table makes its money through deals with restaurants, and it’s available in the App Catalog immediately. Joining it is Fliq Bookmarks by Mark/Space, a bookmark sync utility that works alongside The Missing Sync to sync your Pre bookmarks with Safari. Not quite exciting but hey, at least it’s something. Let us know what you think if you’ve checked out either of these new apps.

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If there’s one thing the world needs right now, there’s no doubt in our minds it’s another on-device application store. Lucky for us, LG seems to agree. The electronics giant has launched its mobile app store in Asia and is setting its sights on going global (Europe and South America, no US yet) by the end of 2009. The creatively named “LG Application Store” will see 1,400 applications right out the gate –  quite impressive for an app store at launch — with about 100 of those applications available for free. We can’t say we’re overly impressed with the ratio of free to paid apps, but anything is better than the selection of 30 that Pre users are currently forced to pick from. If and when LG’s offering makes it to the US however, we would expect the number of free (and total) apps to have grown substantially — pending some level of success of course.

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Eighteen days after the Palm Pre was released in retail outlets across the US, Sprint users have managed to push the Palm App Catalog past the one million download mark with 1,015,038 downloads as of yesterday. This means that for the 150,000 or so Pre handsets RBC analyst Mike Abramsky estimates Sprint sold thus far (official numbers have not been released by Palm or Sprint), each has downloaded an average of about seven applications and the average application has been downloaded roughly 33,800 times. These numbers are made even more impressive when the fact that only 30 applications are currently available in the App Catalog is considered. Remember, the SDK has to this date been available only to a select few and most of the applications found within are still in beta. Let’s also not forget that countless Sprint customers are still waiting for new shipments of the Pre which, as expected, has proven difficult to keep in stock. If all of Sprint and Palm’s ducks were in a row prior to launch (handset supply, open SDK, etc) just imagine where we’d be right now.

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