Android to account for 58% of smartphone app downloads in 2013

Telecom Lead Asia: ABI Research says Google’s Android will account for 58 percent of the smartphone app downloads in 2013.

The global smartphone app downloads will touch 56 billion this year.

In February 2013, Berg Insight said the number of mobile application downloads worldwide doubled during 2012 and reached 60.1 billion from 29.5 billion in 2011. The annual downloads will reach 108 billion by 2017. Revenues from applications, including direct revenues and in-app ad revenues, reached €6.4 billion in 2012. App revenues are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17 percent to reach €14.1 billion in 2017.

According to ABI Research, of different OS platforms, Apple’s iOS market share in smartphone app downloads will be 33 percent.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone will have more than 4 percent share.

The market share of BlackBerry, which launched BlackBerry Z10 recently, will be 3 percent.

In August 2012, BlackBerry said that Blackberry’s App store surpassed 3 billion of BlackBerry app downloads.

ABI Research forecasts that mobile users will download around 14 billion tablet apps this year.

In the tablet segment, 75 percent will be apps running on iOS.

Google Android will represent share of 17 percent, excluding Kindle Fire.

Downloads to Amazon’s tablets will have 4 percent market share, while around 2 percent of the total will be for Windows tablets.

“Arguably the most pressing issue for Google is how much of this handset momentum will ultimately trickle down to tablets, where Apple is holding the fort remarkably well,” said ABI Research senior analyst Aapo Markkanen.

“Google will benefit from the efforts by Amazon, since the presence of Kindle Fire adds a lot of critical code mass to Android’s proposition as a platform for tablet apps. Android’s fragmentation problem isn’t only a problem, but that it has a certain upside as well,” Markkanen added.

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