Global Mobile App Stores Market 2013 – Explosive growth continues till 2017

IT research firm Gartner estimated that worldwide Mobile app stores revenues to reach $26 billion in 2013 compared to $18 billion in 2012 and annual downloads will reach 102 billion in 2013, up from 64 billion in 2012. 91% of total downloads are Free apps and in-app purchases (IAPs) accounts for 48% of app store revenue by 2017, up from 11%in 2012. There is a linear relationship between the apps download and the sales of new mobile devices as the customers who buy new mobile phones definitely download apps and as the mobile buying cycle slows down so does the mobile apps downloads. The industry is expected to continue its explosive growth in future also due to upgrading of mobile networks from 2G to 3G to 4G which will increase the speed of internet and data downloads on the mobile phones and also the mobile phone manufacturers launching more and more devices with powerful processors, touch screens, increase in display screen sizes and finally developers developing more apps.

Apple iOS and Google Android app stores combined are the dominant players in this market and are forecasted to account for 90 percent of global downloads in 2017. Key reason for their dominance is their advanced ecosystems and active developer communities. Free apps currently account for about 60% and 80% of the total available apps in Apple's App Store and Google Play, respectively. Gartner Research highlights IAP is a major revenue contributor to Apple’s App Store revenue fueled by the increasing numbers of iPhones and iPads. Other platforms including Android and Microsoft stores have not been able to monetize their apps, but analysts expect they will also see IAP contributions increase in the future.

	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
Free Downloads	57,331	92,876	127,704	167,054	211,313	253,914
Paid-for Downloads	6,654	9,186	11,105	12,574	13,488	14,778
Total Downloads	63,985	102,062	138,809	179,628	224,801	268,692
Free Downloads %	89.6	91.0	92.0	93.0	94.0	94.5

Source: Gartner (September 2013)

Email and calendaring (46%), Instant Messaging (IM) (37%), and office & personal productivity (26%) are the three most popular uses of mobile applications today according to Gartner survey. CRM, at 19%, and ERP, at 17%, have been predicted to grow the fastest of all enterprise applications on the mobile over the next three years. Mobile apps are no longer a consumer phenomenon and there has been an increase in adoption by enterprise companies and are developing and launching mobile apps. Apps are being used to engage with both the consumers and employees. Smartphones sales are increasing and the companies are adopting the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) will also fuel the enterprise apps growth. But challenges remain for the App stores in terms of monetizing the applications and increasing their revenues. Customers are not inclining to pay for apps and making them pay is the biggest challenge for the industry.

Global Mobile Application Store Revenues – Smartphones & Tablets drive growth

According to ABI research, Total mobile app store revenues from pay-per-download, in-app purchase, subscriptions, and in-app advertising will rise over the next five years, growing from $8.5 billion in 2011 to $46 billion in 2016. Pay-per-download dominates the category but in-app purchase is also rising. ABI Research estimates that 29 billion apps were downloaded worldwide in 2011; up from 9 billion in 2010, the market growing at 12% month-on-month with nearly 36 billion apps downloaded in 2012 to smartphones and tablets. According to Strategy Analytics, 2012 Global mobile media revenues will be $150 billion, which will be 17% rise from $128 billion in 2011 and consumer spend will increase from $121.8 in 2011 to $138.2 billion in 2012 and advertiser spend will almost double from $6.3 billion in 2011 to $11.6 billion in 2012. Applications are forecasted to account for 19% of global consumer spend, or $26.1 billion in 2012, rising 30.7% from 2011. Revenues will remain relatively flat, music will continue to be a strong category, accounting for 11.6% of consumer spend, or $16 billion and video will account for just 2% of consumer spend globally. Apple’s App Store and Android’s Google Play are now big business with 32 billion apps expected to be downloaded in 2012 compared with 23 billion last year.

According to Juniper Research, more than 31 billion apps downloaded to mobile devices in 2011 and estimates consumer app downloads are expected to reach more than 66 billion per annum by 2016. Annual revenues from consumer mobile applications will approach $52 billion by 2016 as consumer smartphone adoption accelerates along with the emergence of tablet market. According to International Data Corporation (IDC), the global mobile app downloads are forecast to soar to 182.7 billion in 2015. By the end of 2014, Gartner forecast over 185 billion applications will have been downloaded from mobile app stores, since the launch of the first one in July 2008. According to May 2011 IHS Screen Digest, 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 %in 2011 to $3.8 billion from $2.1 billion in 2010 and revenues will 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 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 by 2014, downloaded applications will top some 33 billion.

Mobile Applications or Apps are specialized software that run on a mobile device such as mobile phone, MP3 Player, Tablet that performs or executes a specific task and the apps have been existed for several years on personal computers, but real fame for mobile apps is because of Apple Inc.’s App Store that has revolutionized the mobile apps world through its App Store on iTunes, a unique monetization model, that encouraged developers develop apps that educate, entertain and assist the mobile users in their day to day lives. Today there are many different apps like games, music, social networking, photo/video, productivity, entertainment, etc and there are more than million applications that are downloaded close to 20 billion times onto smartphones, feature phones, Mp3 players and tablets. Apple Inc’s App Store, Google Inc.’s Google Play (Merged Android Market & Music Service), RIM’s Blackberry App World, Nokia Ovi Store, Microsoft Windows Marketplace, Samsung Apps are the most popular apps stores. In fact availability of millions of apps has fueled the sales of smartphones and feature phones and developers are making money through a 70/30 revenue split where in developers get 70% of revenues & rest to app store owners. Mobile device makers too are including powerful chips, advanced software and hardware like advanced display screens, long battery life, etc so that apps can run smoothly and customers can easily access, install and use them easily.

App Stores are critical for smartphones and tablets success and developers need to be attracted and encouraged to develop applications that are bought and downloaded by consumers. Developers need to be provided with necessary software development toolkits, constantly be informed various updates being made to the core software code, favorable revenue splits and conferences have to be organized regularly so as to keep the interaction going and since past couple of years many application stores have been set up by various players, which also created a tough competition among the various stores to attract and retain their developers. Developers have to constantly develop and innovate new applications, work to add new features, improve app users experience, localize the app according to user’s regional background, culture, language and make the apps more users friendly to survive in the highly competitive market. App Store owners too have to tightly control the content, organize the store properly and the quality of applications on the stores has to be maintained to attract consumers and earn revenues. Since consumers are looking for accessing the various products and services they use through their mobiles and tablets, businesses are forced to include apps as part of their integrated multi channel distribution systems and apps help businesses to engage and retain consumers which are also fueling the mobile applications market.   

Developers and Content providers are actively looking for other storefronts other than the current App Store fronts and with development of technologies like HTML5 will allow them opportunity to offer apps that consumers download directly and install easily without the App Stores. The competition is further intensified with mobile operators and telecom companies are offering their own app stores for consumers and there is even more competition for attracting the developers. But in near future Apple App Store will dominate the market distantly followed by Android and the monetization of apps at stores other than Apple App Store is a major concern and in fact slowing down the App Store revenues growth. Pay per click and Pay per download models are loosing to In App Purchase models as consumers are more interested in free apps and content and are not interested in paying for apps upfront. Games dominate the market followed by music and social networking apps, but photo/video sharing apps and productivity apps are gaining prominence.