Mobile applications have been capturing headlines in the mobile world. The analysis and prediction by experts terming mobile applications as the happening thing are not mere views but are turning out to be true. The power of mobile application development industry can be gauged from the statistics coming forth that underline its strength. According to a recent report from Gartner, it is estimated that mobile app store downloads worldwide are all set to touch the impressive figure of 17.7 billion downloads in 2011. The figure recorded in 2010 was 8.2 billion so it has witnessed a 117 percent increase from last year. The upward trend is noticeable not only in downloads but in the total revenue generated that is believed to cross the figure of 15.1 billion for this year. The figure includes the revenue generated from mobile application store across the globe. In this estimation, the revenue from buyers and applications generating advertising revenue both has been calculated. As compared to last year, the revenue has jumped to a 190 percent increase as in 2010 it was reported to be $5.2 billion. Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner said in a statement, “There is a sizable opportunity for application stores in the future. However, applications will have to grow up and deliver a superior experience to the one that a Web-based app will be able to deliver. Native apps will survive the Web enhancements only when they will provide a more-personal and richer experience to the ‘vanilla' experience that a Web-based app will deliver.” The rising figures are not just a trend but facts that show that with the increased usage there will be more applications, more developers and thus more revenue in this domain. Popularity and usage of smartphones is not going to decrease any time soon in the near future. Only the applications being designed for them would see a massive rise and that is what we are witnessing in the mobile applications development industry.
