There’s a great new study by Chetan Sharma commissioned by Getjar, ‘Sizing up the Global Mobile Apps Market’.

A few things that caught my eye…

• Mobile apps downloads are expected to increase from over 7 billion in 2009 to almost 50 billion by 2012
• As always, there is pressure on the ASP (average selling price) and as the number of the apps consumed per user increases, we are likely to see the paid ASP decline by 29% in three years
• Browser won’t be the great unifier (of fragmentation) that some hope for anytime soon

1. Paid
a. Subscription
b. In-app
2. Advertising
a. Impression-based
b. Performance-based
c. Promotion
3. Virtual Goods
4. Up-selling/cross-selling other goods
5. Hybrid

With the increase in number of apps, downward pressure on selling price and piracy (already a big issue on iPhone and Android) I personally believe a greater proportion of apps will be free and there will have to be more innovative business models. If you are a mobile developer interested in researching alternative business models then AndroidGuys has an excellent list of 40 Android Business Models (also here and here).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 10:20 am and is filed under Symbian, Series 60, Windows Mobile, Mobile, Android, iPhone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.