Gartner projects app stores to generate $15B in 2011

The mobile apps business isn’t all fun and games. There’s serious money in this relatively new app store market, indeed Gartner Inc. projects revenues to top $15 billion by the end of this year.
By 2014, the firm expects app stores to generate $85 billion in revenue worldwide. Considering the first app store launched in July 2008, the growth trajectory has been phenomenal. At least 17.7 billion apps are expected to be downloaded this year, which marks a 117% increase from the 8.2 billion apps that were downloaded in 2010.
App store revenue hit $5.2 billion in 2010 and is expected to jump 190% to $15.1 billion this year. Gartner also expects more than 185 billion cumulative applications to have been downloaded from mobile apps store by the end of 2014. The firm estimates that advertising will generate almost one-third of the revenue generated by app stores by then as well, which would be a considerable jump from 16% in 2010.
“Many are wondering if the app frenzy we have been witnessing is just a fashion, and, like many others, it shall pass. We do not think so,” Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner, said in a prepared statement. “We strongly believe 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.”