Thaindian News

BERLIN, GERMANY (BNO NEWS) — A report released on Wednesday revealed that the worldwide smartphone applications market grew more than $2.2 billion dollars within the first six months of the year.

According to research2guidance, mobile application download numbers reached a total of 3.8 billion in only 6 months, compared to 3.1 billion in 2009. In addition, the mobile application market had a $1.7 billion revenue for the complete year of 2009, while the first half of the current year has already surpassed that number by $500 million ($2.2 billion in total revenue).

The increase in bought applications comes despite the fact that average application prices steeped to $3.60 per paid application in the first half of the year.

“The market is gaining momentum as more and more smartphone users have direct and easy access to app stores,” explains Ralf-Gordon Jahns, Research Director at research2guidance, a Berlin-based research organization that specializes in the mobile industry. “In addition, the app stores which were founded in 2009 have finally managed to increase application numbers and are growing their app business.”

“Apple’s competitors like Nokia and BlackBerry started to leverage their global reach and increased the traffic on their app stores” says Egle Mikalajunaite Research Analyst at research2guidance. “We see this trend continuing in the next several months and years. The next wave of new app stores will be niche stores specializing on e.g. business or mobile health apps”.

The arrival of smartphones in the consumer market has had a rocketing start. Even though the first considered smartphone was released by IBM back in 1992, Simon, which featured a touch-screen, it was not until the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 that the smartphone market boomed.

Between Simon and the first iPhone, several companies experimented and made important steps within the smartphone production line, developing phones with the Symbian OS and important devices like the Palm and Blackberry.

However, the iPhone and its marketing strategy struck gold. Even though other touch-screen phones like LG Prada and HTC touch hit the market that same year, Apple’s smartphone would impact the cell phone industry forever. It seems as if it has been decades since the first iPhone was released, but just over 3 years have passed and smartphones are quickly becoming a household item. The mobile application market is proof of its quick rise around the world.