FINDING YOUR WAY AROUND THE MOBILE STATS COMPENDIUM:

Home: Full index of contents and highlights • Section A: Mobile subscribers; handset share • Section B: Mobile Web; 3G • Section C: Mobile marketing, advertising and messaging • Section D: Consumer mobile behavior • Section E: Mobile apps, app stores • Section F: Mobile payment, NFC, m-commerce, m-ticketing and m-coupons • Section G: Mobile financial services (MFS) and m-banking • Section H: VC investment in mobile.

SECTION E: Mobile apps, app stores, pricing and failure rates

1) Number of mobile apps and downloads
2) Revenue from apps
3) Proliferation of app stores
4) Demand for app stores
5) Most used mobile apps (US)
6) Declining price of mobile apps
7) App failure rates

1) Number of mobile apps and downloads

• IDC (December 2010): In 2010 these 300,000+ applications were downloaded 10.9 billion times. IDC predicts that global downloads will reach 76.9 billion in 2014 and will be worth US$35 billion.
• ABI Research (October 2011): Predicts that there will be 29 billion apps downloaded in 2011, up from 9 billion in 2010. In Q2 Android overtook Apple in terms of app downloads with 44 percent of downloads, compared to Apple’s 31 percent.

2) Revenue from apps

• Canalys (June 2011): Predicts that direct revenue from the sale of apps, in-app purchases and subscriptions across smartphones and tablets will be $7.3 billion in 2011 rising to $36.7 billion by 2015.
• Canalys expects MNOs to take more of a share of app revenues, exploiting their relationships with the customer and the serious problem of application discovery for both developers and users in the overcrowded vendor app stores.

3) Proliferation of app stores

• Mobyaffiliates recently established a directory of mobile app stores. They found a staggering 70 app stores, which they categorized by cross-platform (26); Android (13); iOS (5); BlackBerry (3); manufacturer-operated (7); carrier-operated (16) app stores.

4) Demand for app stores

• ABI Research (May 2010) predicts that app stores will peak in 2013 and then slowly decline as subscribers migrate from download apps to mobile Web sites and more popular download apps, such as social networking, are preloaded on mobile devices.

5) Most used apps across all smartphone

Nielsen (June 2010): note that’s used as opposed to downloaded – in the US are Facebook, Google Maps and The Weather Channel (TWC). The most popular categories are games; news; maps; social networking and music.
• On average US feature-phone users have 10 apps on board and smartphone users have 22 apps (of which iPhone users have the most with 37).
• The Facebook App has been downloaded 100 million times from the independent app store GetJar, according to GetJar (December 2010) (making this the most downloaded app from any app store).
mobiThinking says: the irony is that this is not a download app it’s a short cut to the Facebook mobile site – Facebook is a Web app, available for anyone with any Web-enabled handset.

6) Declining price of mobile apps

The average price of a mobile app is falling rapidly on all vendor app stores, except Android.
• The Distimo report (January 2011) finds that in December the average the cost of downloading an app was considerably cheaper than it was in January 2010. Distimo makes analytics tools for mobile apps.

7) Failure rates of mobile apps

One in four mobile apps once downloaded is never used again.
• A study by Localytics (January 2010) found that many apps are downloaded, tried once and then discarded.
• “Tracking downloads is often a first step to gauging an app’s success, but download stats often provide an incomplete and inflated view. High download numbers always feel great, but if those customers never open the app or abandon it after just a few uses, those high download numbers are really part of a high churn rate.” – Localytics study (Localytics makes analytics tools for mobile apps).

• mobiThinking note on mobile apps: some app stores, including the largest, Apple, keep download stats for individual apps a secret, which saves the publishers from embarrassment. Thus you will only hear download figures for the more successful apps, but while these sound impressive, they don’t mean much without the retention rate i.e. how many people are still using the app a week, month, or year later.
Further reading on mobile apps:
• What you can learn from the FT Web app: interview with Steve Pinches It’s all about the design • Native v Web apps • Do mobile apps deliver ROI? • Q&A with GetJar

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