I’ve been researching reports from a number of mobile analytics firms to better understand the different application marketplaces created by Apple, RIM, Google, Palm, etc…While it’s clear that Apple currently has the lead in a number of categories (total number of applications, monthly revenue, etc…) leadership will be shifting as this is a nascent market.
Notably, I’ve come across a number of projections that indicate Google will overtake Apple with its Android market. Gartner predicts that Android will capture 18% of the smartphone market by being on 76 million units sold (second only to Symbian OS which will have 39% marketshare and 203 million phones). Android’s marketplace may currently rake in far less monthly revenue now as compared to Apple ($5M to $200M respectively); however, Google should become the dominant platform with its less opaque review process, the backing of Google search, and Google’s up-and-coming consumer and enterprise products. While estimates on the current number of applications on Android vary (Androlib has it around 30,000 currently), Techcrunch forecasts 50,000 apps on Android by Q2 2010.
Here’s the current landscape in terms of total number of applications:
source: http://www.rimarkable.com/rim-has-simply-got-to-do-better-when-it-comes-to-blackberry-applications
What’s amazing to me is that both Blackberry and Nokia phones have captured way more of the market than iPhones or Android phones, yet have so far failed to create a rich marketplace. It seems that RIM is struggling in particular with its BlackBerry App World, in part because its developer tools are difficult to use.
I’ve been seeing a lot of projections about the worldwide app download market just skyrocketing in the next few years. Techcrunch broke this story about how research2guidance forecasts that the market will grow from about $2B in 2009 to $15B in 2013 with the proliferation of smartphones entering the global market.
Because of the competition and the huge potential of the application marketplace, each platform wants to ensure high quality of the applications its marketplace. Apple, for example, is trying to cut out “cookie-cutter” apps which are basically just glorified RSS feeds that don’t provide much value.
We’ll see how all of this plays out, but I think there is some opportunity in helping these companies enhance their marketplaces…
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