What a year its been for the iPhone App Store. It took 9 months to reach 1 billion downloads, 6 months to reach the 2nd and only 3 months to reach the 3rd! Thats right the App Store has witnessed over 3 billion app downloads.
A recently released report from Gartner, a market research firm suggests that the mobile apps industry is huge and that it expected to grow significantly over the next few years. It estimated that $4.2 billion was spend on mobile apps in 2009 and the iPhone App Store had a 99.4% market share of all downloads in this space thus likely being the front to almost every single $$$ spent on mobile apps last year – ‘Apple literally owns this market‘.
According to the report, 2.5 billion apps were downloaded from the iPhone App Store in 2009 and at a 99.4% market share that puts the total app industry at 2.516 billion apps leaving only 16 million app downloads from other mobile platforms such as Android Market & Blackberry App World. Thats an extremely low number considering there are over 20,000 apps these ‘Other App Stores’. Heck, Apple itself witnessed 10 million downloads during the first weekend after the App Store was launched. (Even though there were only 800 apps available at that point).
The question that every developer is probably asking himself is ‘Why in the world should I bother developing for the ‘Other App Stores’?’
Well, lets not write them off just yet…
Taking a look at the most recent market share figures for mobile platforms:
- Android
- The Android platform owns approx. 3.5% of the market in Q309 according to Canalys putting the handset numbers at just under 1.5m for this quarter and estimated at a cool7 million in 2009.
- According to recent numbers published by ChangeWave Research and AdMob the Android platform is definitely growing in popularity, meaning it will soon be a contender for a hefty slice of that the app store pie in years to come.
- Many big handset manufacturers have seriously adopted the Android Platform and we should expect to see a proliferation of Android based devices in 2010. Motorola itself is expected to launch between 20-30 Android based phones globally this year.
- With Android 2.1, the latest version of the platform and devices such as the Motorola Droid (which has almost sold a million) and Nexus One (even though the first week sales stand at 20,000), it is very clear that the Android platform can be a big competitor in the smartphone market.
- Android mobile devices are estimated to top 32m units in 2013 and Android equipped products (PC-Like, portable devices) are expected to reach 126m units in 2013.
- Blackberry
- Blackberry had a 21% market share in Q309 with sales at 8.7m for the quarter and estimated to sell close to 40m devices in 2009.
- RIMM had a very strong Q3 and reported a 59% surge in earnings, 82% of which was due to its line up of Blackberry Smartphones. It expects to sell even more devices in Q409 which is not surprising considering the new found consumer appeal that blackberries have which in turn will help drive its app store sales.
- Symbian
- The main driving force behind Symbian is Nokia and even though the Ovi Store launch was complete disaster here we are one year later and Nokia is ready to launch Ovi v2.0. This in mind is going to kickstart the Ovi Store.
- Nokia already has an established user base of over 60m smartphones and thus this platform shouldn’t be overlooked.
- Smaller Platforms – WinMo & Palm
- One of the most disappointing Mobile OS’ that I have witnessed over the last few years has been Windows Mobile. It seems like they’ve just ported the desktop experience over to the mobile device and in my opinion it looks outdated. Microsoft are set to launch WinMo 7 although it is not expected to hit markets until the end of the year.
- Palm is still a small player in this market. It was estimated that Palm sold close to 1 million Pre’s last year but that still isn’t enough to compete with the big boys.The App Catalog is also small with only 6-700 apps.
Gartner estimates the Mobile App Industry is going to generate $29.5b in revenue in 2013. Thats huge..!
Considering that the Android and Blackberry devices are selling so well and with Nokia bringing a whole new look to Symbian this year, I wouldn’t be surprised if these ‘Other App Stores’ account for 25-30% of that revenue, i.e. approx. $7.5 – $10b worth of sales.
Tremendous opportunity, wouldn’t you say?
Related Posts: The guys at Ars have posted a fantastic article on the App Store numbers released by Gartner. Be sure to check it out here.
