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Mobile App Inflection Point: 25 Billion Apps Downloaded in 2011

23.02.12

Around 43% of U.S. consumers have smartphones. It is likely that the 50% inflection point will come before Q3 of 2012. What will app downloads look like then? There is no way that 300% growth year-over-year can be sustained but the exponential rates will continue throughout the rest of this decade until smartphones and app adoption reaches the point of cultural ubiquity.

Flurry says that revenues from app downloads will reach $2.5 billion this year. In the New York Times story about Flurry's data , there is no breakdown on where that revenue is broken down between paid downloads, in-app purchases, freemium services or advertising. It is likely that revenue number will double next year as more apps are downloaded and a lot of the marketing programs , analytics services, engagement activities and all the push notifications tied to those solutions mature and become more prevalent.

The NYT article also does not break that revenue down by platform. How is the pie sliced between Android and iOS? Android developers have long lamented that the platform is not conducive to making money and that is one of the reasons why developers first look to iOS with new apps before moving to Android. It used to be that iOS was just an easier environment to develop for and make great looking apps, but that particular barrier has eroded in 2011 with a plethora of terrific Android apps coming to the platform.

Source: ReadWriteWeb