Consumers to spend big on mobile apps
"As smartphones grow in popularity and application stores become the focus for several players in the value chain, more consumers will experiment with application downloads," said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner, in a statement. "Games remain the No. 1 application, and mobile shopping, social networking, utilities, and productivity tools continue to grow and attract increasing amounts of money."But Gartner also expects a changing app market as smartphones come down in price and are consumed by more of the general public. Today, tech-savvy users flock to download the mobile apps they need and have no qualms about paying for them online. Down the road, non-tech types may be more wary of paying for apps, a trend that could pave the way for more ad-generated free apps."Growth in smartphone sales will not necessarily mean that consumers will spend more money, but it will widen the addressable market for an offering that will be advertising-funded," said Baghdassarian.The mobile app market has been dominated by Apple's App Store, which now offers more than 100,000 apps and recently watched the number of downloads top 3 billion. But other players have battled for a share of the mobile app market.Launched in 2008, Google's Android Market now has around 16,000 apps, according to Google. Last year alone, Palm set up its new App Catalog store, Research in Motion unveiled its Blackberry App World, and Microsoft kicked off its own mobile storefront.Updated 1:30 a.m. PST to fix typo in number of App Store apps.
