Digital Lifescapes

As 2012 comes to a close, revenues accumulated by the global mobile application (app) market will pass the $30 billion milestone by the end of this year, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. The cumulative revenue base includes the income from pay-per-downloads, in-app purchases, subscriptions, and in-app advertisements. Furthermore, it's nearly double the amount that had been reached by the end of 2011. "Consumer's high interest in apps has for a long time been obvious from download volumes, but it's 2012 that will go down in history as the year when the economic side of the business finally took off. We're no longer talking only about a short-term gold rush. Apps have become a major digital industry," said Aapo Markkanen, senior analyst at ABI Research. The catalyst behind turning mobile apps into meaningful revenue has been Apple, which created a restrictive "walled garden" operating system (iOS) model that forced mobile ne...

There was considerable growth in the mobile applications market in 2010 -- and more competition is expected in 2011, according to the latest market study by ABI Research . Despite more proactive involvement in app store development from other platform providers, Apple iTunes is still the market leader after having such a successful head start. ABI estimates that the Apple iPhone interface had accumulated more than 5.6 billion downloads by the end of 2010 -- compared to nearly 7.9 billion total downloads from all stores during that year. However, Apple is set to face more intensive competition in 2011. "The iTunes App Store only targets iOS users; that leaves more room for other platform application stores to step up and focus on non-Apple clientele," said Fei Feng Seet, research associate at ABI. Google Android-based smartphone quarterly shipments now exceed Apple phones. There is still a long way to go, but accumulated downloads from both Google Android Market and ...