Kevin Bostic
The app revolution sparked by Apple's iPhone has kicked into full gear, and a new report estimates that revenue for all app stores will hit $25 billion in 2013.
Apple's iOS App Store and Google's Play Store will once again lead the way this year, according to new figures out from Gartner. The Wall Street Journal reports that the industry analysis firm forecasts a 62 percent jump in app store revenues, with total revenues for the industry rising to $25 billion.
Apple and Google's app stores are now nearly even in terms of the number of apps available. Both stores hold about 700,000 apps. Second-tier stores from Microsoft, BlackBerry, and Amazon also have app libraries numbering in the tens or hundreds of thousands, though they lag Google and Apple by a large margin.
Gartner's study found a some churn in the app market as well, with 63 percent of daily used apps being different from daily used apps from a year ago. Customers tend to focus on about eight apps, even though they have many more on their mobile devices.
Even with the aforementioned churn, app marketplaces have become somewhat static, with established publishers taking the lion's share of attention. Only two percent of the top 250 publishers in Apple's App Store are newcomers, and newcomers make up only three percent of Google Play's top 250 developers.
Established developers, though, are diversifying the ways they make money. Popular music identification app Shazam, has grown from an earlier dependence on carriers to hold five revenue streams, including in-app ad sales.
Andrew Orr
Christine McKee
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Wesley Hilliard
AppleInsider Staff
Amber Neely
8 Comments
Wonderful. A new round of "let's make up some ridiculous numbers so we can hammer Apple when they fail to meet them". Apple was, by far, the leader in App Store revenues in 2012, but only sold about $15 M per day ($5.5 B). Google was about 1/4 as much and no one else contributed enough to matter. So TOTAL App sore revenue was around $8 B last year. http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/12/20/google-play-grows-faster-but-apples-app-store-still-makes-way-more-money-distimo/ Or, for alternative numbers, Apple reports that the App store achieved $4 B in revenue from 2008 through April, 2012. Or that TOTAL iTunes sales (including music, books, apps, and movies) were $1.9 B in the first quarter last year: http://www.appolicious.com/finance/articles/11792-apples-itunes-app-store-surpasses-600k-apps-1-9-billion-in-revenue-for-q2 So the market is going to more than triple this year? And does anyone doubt for a second that AAPL will get hammered if they don't achieve these absurd numbers? I want to be an analyst. Let's see: Apple will sell 47 trillion televisions in 2014 at an average selling price of $19.99. They will sell umpty-two quadrillion apps during the 2nd half of this year. And they will give way google-plex ponies to loyal customers next week. If they don't meet those expectations, you should definitely sell your Apple stock.
Talk about quality and controlled-entry-to-appstore. Then, Apple will lead.
If they don't meet those expectations, you should definitely sell your Apple stock.
Also, Apple's entire executive team should be fired and Woz should be brought back on as CEO.
The Apple Effect. Ok, maybe the App Effect. All the connectivity we're getting has to have economic consequences. What they will be eludes me. I was completely surprised by the political effects in North Africa, though we should have known. Marshall McLuhan is slapping his knee: "Told you so."
Wonder how those liars at Samsung will spin this news to make themselves look like innovators.