pay-per-download, in-app purchase, subscriptions, and in-app advertising will
grow from $8.5 billion in 2011 to $46 billion in 2016.
Mobile application revenues from in-app purchases will
pass pay-per-download revenues this year, according to ABI Research.
The in-app purchase party could be short-lived due to inactivity at the part of
app developers and Google.
In-app purchase revenue growth has been hampered by
Google. The company did not introduce in-app purchase to Android Market until
July 2011 and only recently added 17 mostly-European countries in December
2011.
In-app purchase is not the only area where Google has
lagged in mobile application enablement. Google doesn’t offer Pay-per-download
in all markets for Android and subscription billing is not offered at all.
Google is literally holding back the growth of mobile
application monetization. We are keying many of our mobile app revenue
forecasts around our guess of Google’s plans,” said Mark Beccue, senior analyst
of mobile services, ABI Research.
As a revenue model, in-app purchase is limited
and the vast majority of current in-app revenue is being generated by a
tiny percentage of people who are highly-committed mobile game players.
We don’t believe the percentage of mobile game players
making in-app purchases will grow significantly, so for in-app purchase
revenues to grow, mobile developers other than game developers must adopt it,”
Beccue added.
