Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Consumer Mobile Applications for 2012
STAMFORD, Conn., November 18, 2009 — Gartner, Inc. has identified the top 10 consumer mobile applications for 2012. Gartner listed applications based on their impact on consumers and industry players, considering revenue, loyalty, business model, consumer value and estimated market penetration.

“Consumer mobile applications and services are no longer the prerogative of mobile carriers,” said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. “The increasing consumer interest in smartphones, the participation of Internet players in the mobile space, and the emergence of application stores and cross-industry services are reducing the dominance of mobile carriers. Each player will influence how the application is delivered and experienced by consumers, who ultimately vote with their attention and spending power.”

“The ultimate competition between industry players is for control of the ‘ecosystem’ and user experience, and the owner of the ecosystem will benefit the most in terms of revenue and user loyalty,” Ms. Shen said. “We predict that most users will use no more than five mobile applications at a time and most future opportunities will come from niche market ‘killer applications’.”

The top 10 consumer mobile applications in 2012 will include:

No. 1: Money Transfer
This service allows people to send money to others using Short Message Service (SMS). Its lower costs, faster speed and convenience compared with traditional transfer services have strong appeal to users in developing markets, and most services signed up several million users within their first year. However, challenges do exist in both regulatory and operational risks. Because of the fast growth of mobile money transfer, regulators in many markets are piling in to investigate the impact on consumer costs, security, fraud and money laundering. On the operational side, market conditions vary, as do the local resources of service providers, so providers need different market strategies when entering a new territory.

No. 2: Location-Based Services
Location-based services (LBS) form part of context-aware services, a service that Gartner expects will be one of the most disruptive in the next few years. Gartner predicts that the LBS user base will grow globally from 96 million in 2009 to more than 526 million in 2012. LBS is ranked No. 2 in Gartner’s top 10 because of its perceived high user value and its influence on user loyalty. Its high user value is the result of its ability to meet a range of needs, ranging from productivity and goal fulfillment to social networking and entertainment.

No. 3: Mobile Search
The ultimate purpose of mobile search is to drive sales and marketing opportunities on the mobile phone. To achieve this, the industry first needs to improve the user experience of mobile search so that people will come back again. Mobile search is ranked No. 3 because of its high impact on technology innovation and industry revenue. Consumers will stay loyal to some search services, but instead of sticking to one or two search providers on the Internet, Gartner expects loyalty on the mobile phone to be shared between a few search providers that have unique technologies for mobile search.

No. 4: Mobile Browsing
Mobile browsing is a widely available technology present on more than 60 percent of handsets shipped in 2009, a percentage Gartner expects to rise to approximately 80 percent in 2013. Gartner has ranked mobile browsing No. 4 because of its broad appeal to all businesses. Mobile Web systems have the potential to offer a good return on investment. They involve much lower development costs than native code, reuse many existing skills and tools, and can be agile — both delivered and updated quickly. Therefore, the mobile Web will be a key part of most corporate business-to-consumer (B2C) mobile strategies.

No. 5: Mobile Health Monitoring
Mobile health monitoring is the use of IT and mobile telecommunications to monitor patients remotely, and could help governments, care delivery organizations (CDOs) and healthcare payers reduce costs related to chronic diseases and improve the quality of life of their patients. In developing markets, the mobility aspect is key as mobile network coverage is superior to fixed network in the majority of developing countries. Currently, mobile health monitoring is at an early stage of market maturity and implementation, and project rollouts have so far been limited to pilot projects. In the future, the industry will be able to monetize the service by offering mobile healthcare monitoring products, services and solutions to CDOs.

No. 6: Mobile Payment
Mobile payment usually serves three purposes. First, it is a way of making payment when few alternatives are available. Second, it is an extension of online payment for easy access and convenience. Third, it is an additional factor of authentication for enhanced security. Mobile payment made Gartner’s top 10 list because of the number of parties it affects — including mobile carriers, banks, merchants, device vendors, regulators and consumers — and the rising interest from both developing and developed markets. Because of the many choices of technologies and business models, as well as regulatory requirements and local conditions, mobile payment will be a highly fragmented market. There will not be standard practices of deployment, so parties will need to find a working solution on a case-by-case basis.

No. 7: Near Field Communication Services
Near field communication (NFC) allows contactless data transfer between compatible devices by placing them close to each other, within ten centimeters. The technology can be used, for example, for retail purchases, transportation, personal identification and loyalty cards. NFC is ranked No. 7 in Gartner’s top ten because it can increase user loyalty for all service providers, and it will have a big impact on carriers' business models. However, its biggest challenge is reaching business agreement between mobile carriers and service providers, such as banks and transportation companies. Gartner expects to see large-scale deployments starting from late 2010, when NFC phones are likely to ship in volume, with Asia leading deployments followed by Europe and North America.

No. 8: Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising in all regions is continuing to grow through the economic downturn, driven by interest from advertisers in this new opportunity and by the increased use of smartphones and the wireless Internet. Total spending on mobile advertising in 2008 was $530.2 million, which Gartner expects to will grow to $7.5 billion in 2012. Mobile advertising makes the top 10 list because it will be an important way to monetize content on the mobile Internet, offering free applications and services to end users. The mobile channel will be used as part of larger advertising campaigns in various media, including TV, radio, print and outdoors.

No. 9: Mobile Instant Messaging
Price and usability problems have historically held back adoption of mobile instant messaging (IM), while commercial barriers and uncertain business models have precluded widespread carrier deployment and promotion. Mobile IM is on Gartner’s top 10 list because of latent user demand and market conditions that are conducive to its future adoption. It has a particular appeal to users in developing markets that may rely on mobile phones as their only connectivity device. Mobile IM presents an opportunity for mobile advertising and social networking, which have been built into some of the more advanced mobile IM clients.

No. 10: Mobile Music
Mobile music so far has been disappointing — except for ring tones and ring-back tones, which have turned into a multibillion-dollar service. On the other hand, it is unfair to dismiss the value of mobile music, as consumers want music on their phones and to carry it around. We see efforts by various players in coming up with innovative models, such as device or service bundles, to address pricing and usability issues. iTunes makes people pay for music, which shows that a superior user experience does make a difference.

Additional information is available in the Gartner report “Dataquest Insight: The Top Ten Consumer Mobile Applications for 2012." The report is available on Gartner’s website at http://www.gartner.com/resId=1205513.

Vodafone India Appstore Publicly Launched

March 8th, 2010 by Gert Jan Spriensma

Vodafone logo

About a month ago we reported on the launch of two domestic appstores in India. As it appears now, Vodafone Indiaalready launched their app store on February 15, but only revealed its existence after they crossed the 10,000 downloads figure.

The new app store offers around 800 apps, which are both local and international. Only 15% of the apps are free of charge, which is compared to other appstore a rather low figure. However, most paid apps are in the Rs. 5 to Rs. 30 range (<1>

Vodafone decided to outsource the development of the store and launched the store along with the Arvato Mobile, a content logistics and service delivery platform. Since Vodafone already rolled out their 360 platform in various countries, they now run two platforms.

Gert Jan Spriensma

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Flurry Smartphone Industry Pulse, February 2010

Posted by Peter Farago on Mon, Mar 15, 2010

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Each month, Flurry leverages its data set collected from iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and J2ME applications to identify, study and share industry trends. Flurry tracks over 20,000 live applications and over 2 billion user sessions each month. Applications that include Flurry Analytics have been downloaded to more than 80% of all iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices. Additionally, each day, approximately one of out every five downloaded applications from the App Store and Android Market include Flurry Analytics. The Pulse report is generated in the first half of each month, looking back at data up through the previous month. Different than other reports that provide updates to the same set of statistics each month, Flurry explores different business themes and topical issues relevant to mobile developers and other industry players.

I. Money Talks: App Store vs. Facebook Platform

Since the App Store launched in July 2008, 35,000 unique companies have released applications, which translates to 58 new companies launching apps each day. This appears to be the largest amassing of 3rd party developer support by any development platform in such a compressed timeframe. For example, comparing the number of applications created for the Facebook platform to the App Store over their respective first 9 months, Apple boasted 25,000 apps to Facebook's 14,000. Comparing respective growth in apps after 14 months, Apple had widened its gap to 85,000 apps over Facebook's 33,000. At the App Store's 18 month mark, reached this January, the number of iPhone apps was reported to have exceeded 140,000 compared to the 60,000 we estimate Facebook had reached over its first 18 months. We believe the difference in growth rates can be attributed to the App Store providing better monetization possibilities for application developers than Facebook did through its first 18 months. Developers, like all rational companies, pursue markets where the path to revenue generation is clear.

II. iPhone Developer DNA: O Brother, Where Art Thou (from)

Thinking about the sheer number of developers with applications in the App Store, we had the practical question: where'd they all come from? It's as if they've appeared over night. Has Apple created a magical new economy for application development start-ups, attracted existing content creators and brands from other platforms, or both? In this report, Flurry examines the genealogy of iPhone application content; that is, their platforms of origin. This sheds light on the mix of skills, motivations and frames of reference different content providers bring to the App Store economy, and which are winning.

To generate a sample that allowed us to compare across categories and pricing models (paid, ad supported, micro-transactions, etc.), Flurry created an index that took into account application rankings across both top 100 paid and top 100 free categories, additionally adjusting for frequency of use and user retention over time. Doing so enabled us to evaluate a free application's ability to retain a user base, important for generating advertising revenue past the download. Based on this index, we generated a list of 200 applications and identified six distinct "heritage" categories:

1. Native iPhone: Companies founded to create applications for iPhone (e.g., ngmoco, PageOnce)
2. Traditional Media: Companies established on Film, TV, Print and Radio (e.g., Disney, TBS, NYT)
3. Mobile: Companies having started on J2ME, BREW, BlackBerry, etc. (e.g., Digital Chocolate, eBuddy)
4. Retail & CPG: Brick-and-mortar companies or ones that manufacture goods (e.g., The Gap, DKNY, Kraft)
5. Online: Companies who began on the web including e-Commerce, social networks, online gaming, streaming music, etc. (e.g., Google, eBay, Facebook, Pandora, PopCap, Zynga)
6. Traditional Gaming: Video game companies from console, portable or PC (e.g., EA, Activision).

The pie chart below shows a breakdown of developers making top applications based on their heritage:

On any new media platform (or channel), entrepreneurial companies enter early in an attempt to establish themselves before a wave of large brands enters the space. At the same time, bigger companies typically take a wait-and-see approach when evaluating new channels and only invest after the ROI for the channel is proven. This combination of small and big company behavior, when evaluating new platforms/channels, creates the window for entrepreneurs to enter early and potentially disrupt big companies before they arrive. The iPhone platform is no exception.

Despite the fact that the App Store is now maturing, reaching its two year anniversary this summer, we are encouraged that native iPhone application developers are still relevant, representing 20% of the heritage pie, the second largest category. This means that the barrier to entry is still low enough for start-ups to enter and innovation to flourish. However, those days may be numbered as "discoverability" has become a significant issue, and now "marketing muscle" is starting to count more in the App Store. This favors brands and larger companies with resources to spend their way in. We are seeing signs that big brands are becoming more active, now perceiving that the iPhone has reached critical mass. With iPhone and iPod Touch now exceeding 70 million units world-wide, we expect 2010 to be the year of brands entering the iPhone. Going forward, we will especially see more movement by established brands from media, retail and CPG. In particular, traditional media (News, Books, TV, Film, Music, etc.) growth will accelerate aggressively with the introduction of the iPad.

The first and third largest heritage categories, Online and Traditional gaming, will likely see little change, or perhaps even a decline in "heritage share," since they were early iPhone entrants and their properties have largely already discovered.

Taking a deeper look at gaming, the iPhone's largest revenue generating category, shows the following distribution of developers based on heritage:

Given the specialized skill-set required to build a compelling game, it's no surprise that traditional game companies lead this category, including companies such as Electronic Arts and Activision. At the same time, native iPhone developers (i.e., brand new gaming start-ups) command the second largest category. The success of new iPhone game developers makes sense given the fact that the traditional gaming industry has long had pent up demand from garage and independent developers looking for new platforms where development and distribution costs allow them to compete. We've seen innovation from companies such as Tapulous, Backflip Studios, ngmoco and others. Online, the third largest segment, includes companies such as PopCap, Playfish and Zynga who have naturally expanded distribution to iPhone given its similar characteristics of being "casual gaming" friendly. Tied for third with Online, Traditional Media (e.g., licensed properties like SpongeBob and Disney Fairies) have long held a place in gaming since brands seek to use the gaming channel to promote their core properties (e.g., upcoming movies) and earn incremental revenue. The most surprising category is mobile gaming which only commands a 12% share. However, investigating more deeply reveals that most successful companies on mobile, prior to the iPhone, did not originally start on mobile. Rather they came from traditional gaming, online and traditional media platforms. Simply put, few pure-play mobile gaming start-ups exist. Some exceptions include Gameloft, Glu Mobile and Digital Chocolate.

Finally, we examine the News Category more closely:

Like gaming, the creation of compelling content in News is a specialized and costly operation. To source and report quality news, companies often have to span various media such as TV broadcast, radio and print, which further increases cost. It's therefore no surprise that Traditional Media dominates the News category, controlling nearly two thirds. For traditional media (e.g., New York Times, ABC News, NPR, etc.), the iPhone represents a large channel through which to distribute their existing content. The small incremental cost of expanding the distribution of Traditional Media's core content, and the attractiveness of reaching an educated, affluent and tech-savvy audience, makes iPhone the perfect platform through which to serve news. Looking forward, the iPad creates an even greater opportunity to increase reach because its larger screen size works better works for newspaper and magazine layouts, as well as TV broadcast.

Native applications represent the second largest category, due to innovation from native iPhone applications that allow personalized filtering, automatically work around gaps in connectivity to pull new content more seamlessly or aggregate and optimize new reading on the iPhone (e.g., Stitcher Radio, Byline, Conserva, etc.). Online, which represents a large share of news consumption in its own right, makes up the third largest category of news on the iPhone.

Finally, while Online is currently in 3rd, we believe the iPad's form factor will deliver a more familiar browsing experience. With ever-increasing wifi coverage, online media players will continue to increase their share just as the Internet cannibalized Print media in the 1990's and 2000's.

III. iPad Anticipation Continues to Stoke Developer Activity

After measuring that developers integrating Flurry analytics into iPhone OS applications in January increased by nearly three times over December, we were eager to follow up on this trend after February data rolled in. The January spike represented the single largest spike in Flurry history. Since iPad runs on a version of iPhone OS, Flurry automatically supports iPad applications (and we've done further testing on the SDK to verify this). This is also how Flurry was able to see application activity on the iPad since last October.

Now, over six weeks since Apple announced the iPad, Flurry continues to measure a significant increase in iPhone OS new application starts within its system. To measure, we took a "before vs. after" snapshot of monthly iPhone OS project starts in our system (iPad runs on iPhone OS 3.2). For the "before" we averaged August - December, 2009 monthly new iPhone app starts within Flurry, and for the "after" we did the same for January - February, 2010.

Historically, we've seen development spikes around new hardware announcements and releases including Motorola Droid for Android development and iPhone 3GS for iPhone OS development. iPad appears to be having a similar, albeit amplified effect, which we attribute to the excitement generated by the impending launch of of the device, now set for April 3 in the U.S. A large proportion of the applications we are seeing are custom ports of existing applications tailored for the iPad. With over 140,000 applications in the App Store, developers who modify, or build from the ground up, their applications early on for the iPad may have the opportunity to establish an early presence on this new device and drive more downloads. To wit, Apple announced today that it will include a dedicated "iPad" app category in the App Store.

Tags: iPhone, App Store, Developers, Apple, iPad, Facebook

Mobile app stores comparison: I believe Windows Marketplace sucks the most!

Dont know the date of this post

• Written By: Mad Dev
• Categorized in: Other

There are many App Stores for mobile devices out there, some are successfull and some suck big-time... Why is that? In this article I will try to analyze 6 of the main App stores out there: Apple App Store, Windows Marketplace, Android Market, Blackberry App World, Nokia Ovi Store, Samsung Application Store and search for the reasons behind their success (or doom!).

Success order (my personal opinion):
1) Apple App Store
2) Blackberry App World
3) Nokia Ovi Store
4) Android Market
5) Samsung Application Store
6) Windows Marketplace



* These numbers are estimated by dividing the total apps to the months each store is active.

Apple App Store
Apple’s App store does not need any introduction, it’s the reason all the others decided to make a store of their own and not keep on selling through other companies like ‘Handango’. Apple once again changed the market and the way customers and developers buy and sell software. They surly made it easier for the customer to buy and install software in their phones but much more difficult for the average developer to sell it. Why? Because an average small developer in the past just added his app in a portal like ‘handango’ free and then collected his earnings, now he has to be a company, pay 99$ to register, wait until Apple decide if they like him or not (in my case I waited 6 months!) and then add their app in a fully censored environment. If he is lucky and his App passes into the catalogue, then it can be seen or disappear in the App Store endless lists in criteria only Apple understands and of course decides. Its their choice to say: which app lives in the light and which dies in the shade.

The good:

• 100.000 apps in there.
• Many free apps.
• Cheap apps! Most of them are below 2$.

The bad:

• Fully censored environment.
• App Store is the only way to install apps in iPhone.
• Crap catalogue. There are thousands of demos but Apple calls them ‘lite’ versions. Each app is several times in the catalogue. (Eg: Game, Game Lite, Game 10 times licence, 20, 30, 40, 50...)

Blackberry App World
Is in fact a very promising mobile store. It’s only 8 months open and still has 3300 apps. The catalogue is decent, the presentation is very good and the most important of all, it the only one that supports Paypal!

The good:

• Paypal billing system.
• Decent catalogue.
• They only one that gives 80% to developers. (Others give 70%)

The bad:

• Many customers experience problems during installation of apps.
• Can be viewed in some limited Countries only.
• Expensive apps.
• Bills 200$ per developer to register.

Nokia Ovi Store
It seems that Nokia has put much effort on promoting this store. It seems very crucial to them. I see the Ovi logo everywhere: tv, internet, sports… But if you are Nokia, then things are easier for you, the only thing you have to do is to include the Ovi Store program in all your mobile phones that can support it (though an update) and then you have 20 million possible customers! Nice e?

The good:

• Nice clean catalogue.
• Is free for developers to register.
• Much effort from Nokia to promote it.

The bad:

• Only 2200 apps in 7 months.

Android Market
In my opinion the Android Market is a disaster! Google, a huge company with endless of dollars could do much better... Ok, they have gathered 10.000 apps in 14 months but as everyone says most of these apps are crap! Why is that? It’s very easy to explain: They only allow developers of 9 Countries to publish paid apps! 9 countries only!!! I don’t get this… why do they even care where the developer that created an app live? Why limit the developing ideas so much? They may say because ‘Google checkout’ billing system cannot cope to pay developers in other countries than these 9, and I will answer: Then make another system that can! YOU ARE GOOGLE, deal with it!

The good:

• 10.000 apps in there!
• Only 25$ fee for developers to register.
• Cheap prices.

The bad:

• 10.000 crap apps in there!
• Developers must live in these 9 countries Google supports in order to sell apps in the store! Otherwise they can only publish free apps.
• The store’s website is a joke.
• The store can be used in limited countries only. (Even after 14 months of store existence)

Samsung Application Store
This is a very respectable app store! It may only have 600 apps in these 3 months since it started and it may only be available in Italy, UK and France now but Samsung made a very respectable start. It supports both Pocket PC and Symbian phones and they only charge 10$ per app listing effort (Free until the end of 2009). Their apps are tested thoroughly and thus operate perfectly on their phones. Plus their catalogue has good quality. They promote their store and even started a contest (Developer Challenge 2009) where they offer $100.000 to developers that make innovating apps. Way to go Samsung!

The good:

• Quality catalogue!
• Apps are tested thoroughly, and run perfectly.
• Promoted a lot. ($100.000 contest running now)

The bad:

• Only 600 Apps.
• Available only in Italy, France and UK for now

Microsoft Windows Marketplace
Given the fact that this store is created and handled by the giant company named Microsoft, one would expect that this effort would be equal to Apple’s App Store and maybe better, right? WRONG! In my opinion this is the worst App store out there! They did everything the wrong way, sometimes they make me feel like they try very hard to fail. A logical thinking person would expect that in order to beat the 100.000 apps Apple already has in their store, Microsoft would try to lure developers and vendors in their store right? Wrong! Here is what they do:

1. They limit their developers to the ones living in a bunch of Countries only.
2. They charge $99 per year every developer!
3. They offer 5 free app tries and then charge $99 per try. (So if have a game and fail the tests 5 times you will pay $500)
4. Developers cannot sell an app in all Countries available; they have to sell it in only one. If you want more then you have to pay $10 per Country!
5. They even charge $99 per try the free apps! With this done, basically no logical thinking developer will even bother to put a free app in there.
6. Developers warned them in their own forums but they don’t even seem to care.
7. They support only 6.5 and 6.1 OS. Why not 5.0 and higher?

On the bright side, the store is live 1-2 months only and has already 400 apps but it feels very wrong! Just like Windows Vista…

The good:

• Apps are tested thoroughly, and run perfectly.
• 400 apps in a month.

The bad:

• Limiting developers to a bunch of Countries.
• Treating developers like customers.
• An app cannot target all Countries at once.
• Expensive to include apps and thus expensive prices.
• Working only on 6.1 and 6.5 OS.

CONCLUSION:
Imagine that the mobile App Stores battle is a marathon race: then we could say that Apple is leading it, Blackberry-Nokia and Samsung started very promising. Behind them Google can’t find his rhythm when everybody is wondering: Where is Microsoft?