We aint seen nothing about Apps Stores says Gartner

$15 billion! That’s the total mobile apps pie in 2011. Apple’s App Store helped mobile application downloads soar in 2010. With Google’s Android Market pushing Apple, the growth story could become a little more steeper. The $15 billion number by Gartner, is up 190 percent from $5.2 billion in 2010, and counts both users buying applications and applications generating ad revenue on smartphones and tablet computers. Consumers will download 17.7 billion applications this year, more than doubling from the 8.2 billion downloads installed in 2010.

Gartner expects free downloads will account for 81 percent of total mobile-application-store downloads in 2011. However, users will begin paying for more applications as quality and billing systems are boosted. Gartner claims that Apple accounted for 9 out of 10 apps downloads in 2010. Even with its 10 billion downloads, a 90% share of download is a very implausible number especially because of the growth in Android and GetJar. Apple seems to have mastered the art of attracting developers, organizing content and engaging users throughout the life of the store in order to remain profitable.
In many ways, this is a thumbs down to Google’s Android Marketplace. While Apple’s App Store has set the gold standard for application stores, Android Market is struggling to reduce spammy applications and improve billing options to boost paid application sales.

Gartner also expects media tablets such as Apple’s iPad and Android-based tablets, RIM’s PlayBook and other devices to drive more downloads from consumers.

With such huge growth numbers, the mobile-application market is beyond just a passing fad as many initially expected it to be. Gartner forecasts that, by 2014, 185 billion applications will be downloaded from online stores such as Apple’s App Store, Android Market, Nokia’s Ovi Store, Research In Motion’s App World, Microsoft Marketplace and Samsung Apps. Gartner also said Apple’s App Store will remain the best-selling store through 2014, although to a lesser extent, as the Android Market and other shops gain momentum. Revenue from mobile apps on stores will grow by 1000% over the next 3 years and reach a staggering $58 billion.

However, Gartner also remarked that Applications will have to grow up and deliver a superior experience to the one that a web-based app will be able to deliver. Native apps will survive the web enhancements only when they provide a more personal and richer experience to the ‘vanilla’ experience that a web-based app will deliver.