The current worldwide rate of mobile application downloads stands at a round 7 billion per year, an impressive figure that puts the application market at an annual average of just over one app per person worldwide. That in itself is a staggering statistic for a relatively new technology, but based on market growth and various other factors, Chetan Sharma Consulting have drawn up market projections that suggest that figure will multiply by a whopping factor of seven by the end of 2012.
The prediction goes so far, in fact, that the total financial volume of application sales is predicted to surpass the total amount spent on CDs in two years time. Basing their predictions on the increasing power of modern mobiles, as well as the (more than likely extremely successful) introduction of crossover devices like the iPad, Chetan Sharma forecast an exponential growth in application sales that will take the total revenue that they generate to $17.5 billion, as well as pushing total sales to more than $50 billion across all platforms.
Chetan Sharma hasn’t limited their forecasts to sales figures, and has also predicted a host of new trends in mobile application development. For example, while most applications are currently bought through specific mobile producers systems (for example iStores for Apple Apps), the consultants believe these will become far less prevalent in the future, and the current 6% of applications bought through other sources will increase dramatically. The downwards trend in average application cost is also expected to continue, though this will be compensated for in a large way by volume, and in a less impressive way through the advertizing that accompanies the apps (which is expected to remain reasonably consistent per app sold). The average selling price is currently $1.90 per application, though prices, of course, range dramatically from free to nearly $1000 for the costly iRa Pro, which is used for monitoring security cameras through your iPhone. By 2012, it is estimated – in part due to sheer volume of apps – that the average price might be nearer $1.40.
Making such specific and utterly soaring predictions for the fairly near future is a brave move from Chetan Sharma, but one backed by a barrage of evidence that suggests what was previously a relatively elite market is likely to break its way into the global in an extremely major way over the next year or two. Apps – and the phones that support them – are less and less the preserve of the rich, and the profits of bulk sales can be expected to follow the expansion.
