Mobile app revenue to top $25 billion in next five years

published 28 April 2009

Users' growing appetite for mobile applications looks set to boost the market's revenue to more than $25 billion by 2014.

So claims a new report from analyst Juniper Research, who claims that app stores will be a main driver of that growth over the next five years.

At present, one-of downloads are the main revenue generators, but that will change as in-app billing starts to gain in popularity until 2011, when it becomes the main breadwinner.

"Data revenue growth is dependent upon operators embracing policies which enable open access a policy which also involves facilitating app stores which compete with their on-portal offerings," said Dr Windsor Holden, the report's author, in a statement.

App stores are increasingly becoming a force to be reckoned with. While that's good news for mobile users, traditional content aggregators are feeling the squeeze. To survive in this new world, they have little option but to expand their content range and evolve their business models.

Just last week, Apple's App storehit the billion downloads milestone, further demonstrating its popularity.

And Google's contender to the iPhone throne, Android, also has its very own Android Market, which is also gaining favour among developers and users alike.

Maggie has been a journalist since 1999, starting her career as an editorial assistant on then-weekly magazine Computing, before working her way up to senior reporter level. In 2006, just weeks before ITPro was launched, Maggie joined Dennis Publishing as a reporter. Having worked her way up to editor of ITPro, she was appointed group editor of CloudPro and ITPro in April 2012. She became the editorial director and took responsibility for ChannelPro, in 2016.

Her areas of particular interest, aside from cloud, include management and C-level issues, the business value of technology, green and environmental issues and careers to name but a few.