Last year smartphone users spent $8 billion (around £5 billion) for paid apps in the five biggest application stores: the Apple App Store, Google Play, BlackBerry App World, Nokia Ovi Store and Windows Phone Store. That’s a 27% increase from the previous year, according to a new report from mobile research specialists research2guidance.
However, the report also points out that the number of new apps in stores is exceeding demand, which is lowering revenue and could eventually lead to a situation where paid content isn’t a profitable business model.
Average revenue for paid applications fell from $26,720 in 2011 to $19,560 in 2012.
As a result, research2guidance says there’s increasing interest in other revenue models including in-app advertisements, in-app purchases, mCommerce, apps bundled with hardware or services, efficiency gains and cost reduction.
[research2guidance blog]
