A few years ago there were a very few applications for smartphones and no one at that time could think about their distribution via one service. Now the situation has changed radically. Today we are able to choose among over 350 thousand of mobile applications. Distribute model of mobile applications through shop created by Apple has been copied by other mobile platforms developers.
But it is too early still to talk about market saturation for mobile applications. Forrester Research forecasts that revenue from mobile applications by 2015 will reach $ 38 billion. A few months' earlier analysts predicted that revenues from mobile applications in 2011 will reach $ 15 billion. Majority of the profit will be generated not only by smartphones owners, but also by tablet users. Approximately one fifth of all income in 2015, or $ 8 billion, will come from selling programs for tablets. For comparison, in 2010 software for tablet has bought only $ 0.3 billion.
The rapid development of the sector is associated with qualitative changes in smartphones. For example, we will be witnesses of the transition to more high-speed data network (4G). This will enable to use smartphones for high quality video viewing, using NFC sensors and so on. According to data, collected in November 2009, today among TOP mobile apps for smartphones are games, applications for travel, navigation and photo. The data is contained in a survey connected on the order of Samsung Electronics.
According to analysis, games are the most popular among women: 70% of them admitted playing mobile games, whereas among men the rate was 57%.
Women also appreciate programs for creating and processing photos (70%) – much more than men (49%).
Demand for applications that allow obtaining reference information or advice among men and women is over the need of applications for social networks (39%).
Among the most desirable mobile applications are: programs for travel and navigation (34% of respondents want to use them), photo apps (12% of responses), applications for work (11%) and shopping (9%).
Demand for applications among consumer is high: almost half of the smartphones owners (42%) would pay for downloading applications, if they had such an opportunity. 54% of these users are willing to pay 5 euros per application and 13% – up to 10 euros.
43% of smartphone's owners, who have installed any application before, lost interest in it very quickly, so nearly half of the programs in a short time became excessive. This demonstrates a clear discrepancy of existing market applications to real life requirements.
Research shows that the mobile application market has huge potential but due to unrealized demand, developers and application providers can expect higher imports. The survey results confirm that this market is at an early stage of development.