Smartphone App Market Booming; Cell Phone Users Hungry for Apps

Mobile application proves itself to be a gold mine as both the numbers of apps available and downloads continue to increase at a rapid pace. Yankee Group predicts that by the end of 2013, nearly 7 billion smartphone app downloads from all app stores will generate $4.2 billion in revenue within the U.S. market.

According to the market research company, the projected strong growth rides on the back of two trends: the increasing smartphone adoption and the rising average price of apps. Over the next four years, the number of people owning a smartphone will surge by four times from 40 million to about 160 million. In addition, while more and more apps are available to customers, paid apps will account for a quarter of all smartphone app downloads by 2013, with an average price of $2.37, up from $0.99 today.

Following in Apple’s footstep, companies such as Google, Microsoft, Palm, Nokia, BlackBerry and Samsung have started running their own app stores. Also, leveraging a number of advanced features provided by smartphones, such as touchscreens, accelerometers, GPS support and full HTML Web browsers, developers also flooding in the mobile application market. The result is that mobile apps are now available in a wide range of categories to satisfy users’ different needs, including entertainment, communication, business, information and interest.

Other than developers and app store owners, handset users have also been showing great interest in the field. A survey from comparison website Moneysupermarket.com reveals that over two out of five customers will consider changing their cell phones, so that they can use apps available elsewhere. Meanwhile, six percent of all users consider the ability to download apps more important than other factors when choosing a new handset. The research also finds that in the past 12 months, smartphone owner has downloaded 20 applications in average, which is more than a lot of people have been thinking.

With more cell phone users, app developers and companies joining the gold rush, it seems very likely that the boom of mobile applications will continue for at least a couple of years.

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