Free Application Demand to Rise, Accounting for Nearly 90% in 2012

We love free applications. The increasing popularity of smartphones has also introduced us to the world of mobile applications. Apple was the first to make users familiar with the word "mobile application" by launching iPhone & App Store. And in less than 5 years, mobile applications have become an integral part of our lives. Be it an individual or enterprises, we all are leveraging on the benefits of mobile applications for various tasks.

And the tremendous growth of mobile app market has attracted developers to create some of the most innovative & feature rich applications for users. Some of these apps are paid but most of them are free. You will be glad to know that 90 percent of the downloaded applications in 2012 will be free apps.

Research firm Gartner yet again shifted its focus to app world and released a report "Market Trends: Mobile App Stores, Worldwide 2012". The report reveals that there were 24.94 billion app downloads from Google Play, App Store, and others in 2011. And out of these, 88.5 percent that makes 22 billion were free applications while 2.9 billion were paid apps.

Enterprises are approaching mobile app developers to get an app merely for branding also. Therefore, they make these applications available for free. Once the app becomes a hit amongst users, enhanced versions are introduced at a little cost.

The mobile application market is growing at lightning speed and the report predicts that there will be total 309.61 billion downloads in 2016 with 93 percent being free apps.

Here are some extracts from the report:

• The total number of app downloads will grow by 83 percent in 2012 and the growth rate will be around 50-70 percent each year through 2016.
• Gartner forecasts that total app download will hit 131.67 billion with 91 percent being free applications in 2014.
• In 2015, the total app download will rise to 205.38 billion with 92 percent of being free apps.
• Talking about paid apps - those priced less than $3 will make 87.5 percent of downloads in 2012 and the figure will increase to 96 percent by 2016.

If we talk about the market share of all application stores, Apple's share is the maximum as the App Store accounts for 25 percent of the apps available in all stores. Gartner also predicts Apple to lead the app store competition with more than 21 billion downloads in 2012, which has increased up to 74 percent from 2011. Microsoft and Google along with Apple will be dominating the application market in the coming time but there will be room for third-party stores such as Amazon and Facebook.