The rise of application stores is nothing less than phenomenal. App downloads from the Apple app store alone are more than 4 billion, 3 billion more than a year ago, and operators, handset manufacturers and independent application stores are all rushing into the apps market.
Every month some 10 new application stores are opening up shop. To date at least 75 app stores are live globally, ranging in size from large (over 200,000 apps in store) to small (just a few hundreds of apps).
The big questions that app stores and app developers are currently facing is how to build a commercially successful business and what are the winning business models.
In its whitepaper “A World of Apps”, Juniper Research estimates the global market for apps to grow to $32 billion in 2015.
“Application Store Billing”, a report by Netsize published May 2010, analyses the wave of recent app store developments and shows providers will need to develop much more than a me-too application storefront modeled on the Apple blueprint.
The report, containing an overview of the top-52 application stores, is available as free download from www.netsize.com.
