Yankee Group Predicts $4.2 Billion Mobile App Gold Rush by 2013

The appstore market keeps booming. iTunes appstore is now showing the top apps by earnings in a separate category which gives you an indication of which apps generate top dollars and to no ones surprise 80% of the top apps are games and only a few major players (EA, Gameloft, etc) as well as a few independent development houses are making money. We believe that the forecast by Yankee Group is too optimistic in terms of direct premium revenue. One of the reasons is that customers overestimate their spend on apps but also the number of great apps available for free. According to our estimates only a few hundred or less than 1% of the apps on the iTunes appstore generates a positive return to the developer. So is mobile apps a big bubble?

The answer is definitely no. There is a much bigger story. In addition to entertainment (games), apps are used for marketing, information, productivity, communication, networking and much more so the overall value to mobile operators, advertisers, consumers and businesses is much bigger. According to Strategy Analytics approximately 20% of all apps downloaded to date in 2009 have been to an iPhone or iPod which makes the total number of downloads over 5Bn. This is almost 1 download per inhabitant globally. Amazing figures and yet they will continue to grow.

Read the full pressrelease by Yankee Group here

7 Mobile Insights May 2009 including iPhone App and Java download statistics

The past 9 months have been interesting in more ways than Apple achieving 1 billion app downloads from the iPhone appstore:

1. Mobile ad spend in 2008 in the UK exceeded expectations and doubled vs. 2007 (http://tinyurl.com/qengsl)
2. Over 400% growth in apps downloaded 2008 vs 2007 driven by the iPhone Appstore as well as free appstores (Getjar, Mobile9, Mobango, etc), device manufacturer appstores (Blackberry App World, Nokia Ovi, Samsung Mobile Applications, etc) and mobile operators (Vodafone Appstore, O2 Limus, Orange World Appstore, etc)
3. Although iPhone apps get all the attention Golden Gekko has found that when launching apps/games across both iPhone and other platforms the number of downloads on other platforms (Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, Blackberry, etc) outnumber iPhone 10 to 1 (contact us for more info).
4. With approx 2% iPhone device penetration Apple Appstore has an impressive 12% (21% including iTouch) market share in volume of mobile apps downloaded in Europe and North America (Strategy Analytics: How Apple Change the Market for Mobile Applications, http://tinyurl.com/o52cm7).
5. Although iPhone app development can cost as little as $12.000 a well-designed app can cost anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000, take six to eight weeks to develop, and a couple more weeks more to be approved by Apple (http://tinyurl.com/qke9xb)
6. 52% of mobile users play games on their phone and about one-in-ten mobile phone users in Europe (8%) claim to have participated in mobile marketing efforts (MMA European Mobile Attitude and Usage Study, December 2008)
7. 51 percent of mobile phone users in the USA access content using their mobile phone on a weekly basis (http://tinyurl.com/p95opg)