Mobile App Market To Soar To $17.5 Billion

The worldwide mobile applications market is on track to be worth $17.5 by 2012, according to a new report commissioned by GetJar, the globe's second largest app store.

Mobile app downloads across all handsets are estimated to climb from over 7 billion downloads in 2009 to almost 50 billion in 2012, a year-over- year growth rate of 92 percent.

 

GetJar commissioned consulting firm Chetan Sharma Consulting to examine the rapidly expanding global apps market. The goal of the study was to look at the potential and real value of the mobile apps market worldwide.

Apps markets are evolving differently worldwide, indicating a need for creating different apps business models instead of a "one size fits all" approach. For example, the average app selling price (ASP) in North America was $1.09, significantly higher compared to ASPs in developing markets such as South America ($0.20) and Asia ($0.10).

The revenue potential in Europe is set to soar from $1.5 billion in 2009 to $8.5 billion in 2012, while in North America the figure will increase from $2.1 billion to $6.7 billion in 2012. Currently apps are most popular in Asia, with the region accounting for 37% of global downloads in 2009. However, while Asia had the highest number of downloads, users in North America spent the most money on apps, accounting for over 50% of revenue

Other highlights from the report include:

*Advertising based revenue models have become increasingly popular. In 2009, advertising contributed almost 12% of the overall apps revenue. However, this share is expected to more than double to over 28% by 2012 - given the high proportion of prepay users in developing markets.

*The battle of the app stores is well underway - in 2009 the number of app stores leapt from eight to 38 - an increase of 375%. The number of app stores is expected to further increase in 2010.

*The price of mobile applications can vary from $0.99 to $999, however the average selling price in 2009 was approximately $1.9. This is predicted to decrease by 29% over the next three years, although advertising revenue derived from apps is likely to stay relatively flat.

"With the consumer appetite for mobile apps rocketing, the opportunities for developers are huge," said Ilja Laurs, CEO and founder, GetJar.

"This report signifies a battle for survival of the fittest among app stores worldwide - with app revenue and growth opportunities growing significantly. There is no way that this many app stores will survive in the long term and while the value of the global app economy is set to be astoundingly high by 2012, we think only a few app stores will share this revenue."
 

 

 

Mobile App Market To Soar To $17.5 Billion

The worldwide mobile applications market is on track to be worth $17.5 by 2012, according to a new report commissioned by GetJar, the globe's second largest app store.

Mobile app downloads across all handsets are estimated to climb from over 7 billion downloads in 2009 to almost 50 billion in 2012, a year-over- year growth rate of 92 percent.

 

GetJar commissioned consulting firm Chetan Sharma Consulting to examine the rapidly expanding global apps market. The goal of the study was to look at the potential and real value of the mobile apps market worldwide.

Apps markets are evolving differently worldwide, indicating a need for creating different apps business models instead of a "one size fits all" approach. For example, the average app selling price (ASP) in North America was $1.09, significantly higher compared to ASPs in developing markets such as South America ($0.20) and Asia ($0.10).

The revenue potential in Europe is set to soar from $1.5 billion in 2009 to $8.5 billion in 2012, while in North America the figure will increase from $2.1 billion to $6.7 billion in 2012. Currently apps are most popular in Asia, with the region accounting for 37% of global downloads in 2009. However, while Asia had the highest number of downloads, users in North America spent the most money on apps, accounting for over 50% of revenue

Other highlights from the report include:

*Advertising based revenue models have become increasingly popular. In 2009, advertising contributed almost 12% of the overall apps revenue. However, this share is expected to more than double to over 28% by 2012 - given the high proportion of prepay users in developing markets.

*The battle of the app stores is well underway - in 2009 the number of app stores leapt from eight to 38 - an increase of 375%. The number of app stores is expected to further increase in 2010.

*The price of mobile applications can vary from $0.99 to $999, however the average selling price in 2009 was approximately $1.9. This is predicted to decrease by 29% over the next three years, although advertising revenue derived from apps is likely to stay relatively flat.

"With the consumer appetite for mobile apps rocketing, the opportunities for developers are huge," said Ilja Laurs, CEO and founder, GetJar.

"This report signifies a battle for survival of the fittest among app stores worldwide - with app revenue and growth opportunities growing significantly. There is no way that this many app stores will survive in the long term and while the value of the global app economy is set to be astoundingly high by 2012, we think only a few app stores will share this revenue."
 

 

 

Google Suffers Market Share Stumble In The UK

While we normally don't comment on market share fluctuations that occur in places other than America, some recent changes in the UK may bear mentioning.  According to the AT Internet Institute, Google's share of the search market slipped by 1.6 percent between January and February.

That's a significant amount.  Indeed, as the slightly upsized figure below shows (sorry for any blurriness), if Ask and AOL had suffered similar losses, they'd have been wiped out, hitting zero.

Of course, that didn't happen.  Instead, both Yahoo and Bing benefited from Google's dip.  Yahoo gained a not-bad 0.6 percent, and Bing increased its share by an even-better 0.7 percent.

Google's still in an extremely dominant position, but given that Microsoft's about to spend $2 billion on Bing commercials in the UK, these changes are noteworthy.  Microsoft might not be throwing its money away, as some people have speculated; there's now the possibility that it could extend or accelerate this growth trend.

We'll be sure to write again about the UK search market next month if anything out of the ordinary happens.  In the meantime, it should be interesting to see how those Bing commercials are received.

Goldman Sachs Slashes Nexus One Sales Forecasts

Investment banking and securities firm Goldman Sachs is more or less giving up on Google's Nexus One.  A note Goldman Sachs published this week indicates that it's cut its 2010 sales forecast by a whopping 71.4 percent.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the note stated, "We previously estimated that Google might sell 3.5 mn Nexus One units in 2010."  Now, after seeing some data from Flurry, "We forecast that Google sells 1.0 mn Nexus One units in FY2010 . . ."

Goldman Sachs doesn't have much confidence that Google will be more successful in the future, either.  The firm believes Google will sell additional devices as it "rolls out a second Nexus handset, markets it more aggressively, and makes it available offline," but nothing like 3.5 million was mentioned.

Instead, Goldman Sachs predicted "that Google sells 2 mn handsets per year in 2011 and future years."

This is fairly bad news for the search giant, given that the Nexus One was supposed to make so much of a splash.  The online-only sales model and lack of advertising may have been meant to save Google huge amounts of money, too.

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