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.

Netsize, a leading mobile commerce and communications enabler, today revealed the first results of the Mobile Trends Survey 2010. Drawing from an online survey of 1,000+ professionals and practitioners, the survey provides insights into key trends that top the industry agenda, including the advance of mobile applications stores, progress towards global mobile commerce and the pivotal importance of mobile as a means to bridge our virtual and physical worlds.

Using the occasion of M-Days – one of Europe’s biggest mobile industry events and exhibitions held in Munich, Germany – Netsize provided conference attendees, industry influencers and key bloggers a sneak peek into the controversial survey results, starting with respondents’ views on app store leaders and the enablers that give them and their offers the competitive edge.

According to the survey, the vast majority (87 percent) of respondents believe the Apple App Store will be the most successful app store in the mobile space. Google’s Android Market is a distant second (60 percent), followed by Nokia’s Ovi Store (30 percent) and RIM’s BlackBerry App World (27 percent). Surprisingly, applications stores run by mobile operators finished low in the list, indicating that platform providers and handset makers may well dominate the space for a time to come.

When asked to rate the unique selling proposition of application stores over other software distribution and sales channels, 65 percent of respondents put convenience (“everything in one place”) at the top of the list. This was followed by compatibility “software applications specific to the device”), choice (“a long tail of thousands of applications to choose from”), and ease of payment (“operator billing, for example”).

Netsize, provider of operator billing solutions to most of the large mobile device vendors for their application stores, released the application store survey findings to the stage for a lively discussion of the future of mobile and the role of software application stores during “Mobile Trends 2020, Mobile Research and App-Commerce: What Comes Next in Europe?” The M-Days session was led and moderated by Peggy Anne Salz, mobile thought leader and MSearchGroove Founder and Chief Analyst.

The complete mobile trends survey results – which cover topics related to mobile entertainment, mobile marketing, mobile commerce, mobile payments and mobile convergence – will be released as part of the Netsize Guide 2010, a comprehensive mobile industry analysis and almanac published by Netsize and written by MSearchGroove’s Salz. Netsize will launch the Netsize Guide 2010 on February 16, 2010 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

Netsize Smart Application Billing enables Application Stores to use operator based billing to charge for application downloads and usage, and permits charging from the mobile application itself.

“Reaching the largest consumer audience and making it easy to buy content are the key success factors for Application Stores. With Smart Application Billing they reach 1.3 billion consumers globally, and consumers can conveniently purchase applications and application extensions via their mobile operator phone bill in both Pay per Use and Subscription business models,” says Stanislas Chesnais, Chairman and CEO, Netsize.

“Our Application Store customers observe an increase of their revenues by 400% as soon as they add operator based billing. Having an alternative for credit card billing clearly removes an obstacle in the purchasing process.” He adds, “On Application Store visits that use a mobile device over a Wi-Fi connection we record a 30% increase in payment transactions. It proves the business case for operator based billing as a successful internet payment method.”

Smart Application Billing uniquely combines three operator based billing methods: Direct Operator Billing, Premium SMS Messaging, and WAP Billing. Depending on the characteristics of the consumer’s network operator Smart Application Billing dynamically proposes the preferred billing method to the application. Direct Operator Billing and Premium Messaging allow the user to make the payment while remaining in the application. WAP Billing is used when the other methods are not available. The user makes the payment outside of the application on a mobile internet payment page.

Direct Operator Billing is the billing method where an installed application on a mobile handset initiates a billing transaction via Netsize directly to the user’s mobile network operator.

Netsize is the delivering operator billing solutions to some of the largest Application Stores. Sony Ericsson has chosen Netsize mPayment for PlayNow™ arena to cover multiple countries in Europe.