Mobile Apps Revenue Near $30B in 2013

Worldwide revenue from the purchase of downloaded mobile applications is forecast to surge 47 percent in 2010 from last year, according to a report.

Mobile consumers are expected to spend $6.2 billion in 2010 at mobile applications stores compared with $4.2 million in 2009. Revenue for the wildly popular mobile application market, including advertising, is expected to skyrocket to $29.5 billion by the end of 2013, according to the report from researcher Gartner.

“Games remain the No. 1 application, and mobile shopping, social networking, utilities and productivity tools continue to grow and attract increasing amounts of money,” said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner.

Another bright spot is the burgeoning mobile ad market, expected to reach $600 million worldwide in 2010, according to the researcher. That could explain Google's move in November to acquire Accel-backed ad network AdMob for $750 million and Apple's subsequent purchase of Quattro Wireless for an estimated $270 million.

By end of 2013, Gartner expects that among the $29.5 billion in mobile revenue 25 percent will be coming from ad-supported free applications. Gartner is predicting that downloads from mobile application will surpass 21.6 billion by 2013 compared with 2.5 billion in 2009.

Of the 4.5 billion mobile application downloads forecast for 2010, the research firm said 8 out of 10 would be free applications.

on 18 January 2010, 13:46
by Red Herring Staff

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