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Tablet users to shape the future mobile app market

May 212012

Tablets are the future of tomorrow, so predicts Research2guidance, the analytical firm. According to a report published by them,

The number of new tablet app consumers increased by 58 million. As a result, tablet owners now constitute 8.6% of the installed app consumer base.

While in 2011,

apps in the Apple App Store for iPad grew 180% to more than 140,000 apps by the end of Q4 2011. While this cannot be easily quantified for Android as tablet apps are not separated out, the growth of niche stores and niche store categories focusing on Android tablets reflects their growing presence. For example, Archos Appslib focuses completely on Android tablet apps, while other stores like Android Tapp has a dedicated category.

During 2011, apps in the Apple App Store for iPad grew 180% to more than 140,000 apps by the end of Q4 2011. While this cannot be easily quantified for Android as tablet apps are not separated out, the growth of niche stores and niche store categories focusing on Android tablets reflects their growing presence. For example, Archos Appslib focuses completely on Android tablet apps, while other stores like Android Tapp has a dedicated category.

Also

Several studies have shown that tablet users exhibit different behavior towards app downloading/usage and mobile browsing than smartphone users. Based on the breadth of use cases for gaming, ecommerce, digital publishing and the enterprise – tablet user growth is likely to have a marked effect on consumption in these areas.

In the enterprise, for example, tablets have already been largely implemented at upper levels of management and are quickly working their way throughout organizations – according to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook in 2012, 92% of Fortune 500 companies are testing or deploying iPads. As more and more use cases are developed and penetration increases, so too will the number of apps being developed for enterprise tablet users. While Apple has already carved out a niche section for iPad and iPhone Business users called “@Work”, other players like Lenovo and Cisco are trying to do the same for Android Business users.

But what about the likes of Galaxy note? The Phablet device which is quickly gaining momentum as the choice of device for user who want a tablet with smartphone functionality and vice versa…!!

Windows Phone interface beats iPhone interface, hailed as New world order

Editorials No Responses »

Nov 292011

When CNET got their hands on Windows Phone (Nokia Lumia 800 to be precise), they were simply awestruck by the balance the platform had to offer. The UI was, well, slick, but was a lot less clunky, as per CNET.

According to the article:

The king is dead

Until not so long ago, that meant Apple. But something insane has happened. Something that we simply wouldn’t have countenanced just three short years ago.

One company makes a beautiful, intuitive, elegant interface, and the other makes a dated, clunky interface. But now it’s Microsoft showing off the thing of beauty, and Apple that’s behind the times. Microsoft is the underdog and Apple is the monolithic, restrictive monopoly. Has the world gone mad?

Sure, the iPhone and iPad interface is still slick and simple. But the shine is gone — iOS 5 looks almost exactly the same as iOS 4. Android showed what you can do when you can truly customise the look and feel of your phone, with its flexible home screens, handy widgets placing information right at your fingertips, and the capacity to alter any feature you like.

I seem to recall an old story, when the only smartphone OS of the time, Symbian, was bashed by everyone. People wanted behemoths of phones. They worshipped a large screen and a powerful processor, only to realise that the duo would eat battery faster. They demanded an app store like no other, only to trial a few apps and then delete them and move on to the next.

Nokia was undeniably the game setter, Apple was the game changer, Android was the turmoil that uprooted everyone, and yet RIM et al were wondering what just happened. This proves the age old proverb – The only thing which is constant is change.

Source

More than 30 percent apps pulled down from Android Market, Windows Marketplace continues to be exploited

Metrics Maid No Responses »

Oct 252011

Analyst firm research2guidance has a published a report according to which, while the number of apps submitted to Android Market has passed the 500,000 mark, compared with 600,000 for Apple’s App Store, more than 37 percent of these have subsequently been removed – compared with just 24 percent removed from the App Store.

The report is as follows

The actual total number of applications published on the Android Market leapt to over 500,000 in September 2011. In the meantime, the Apple App Store stands at just over 600,000 successful submissions: just 20% more. But over 37% of the applications published were later removed from the Android Market for various reasons, whereas the Apple App Store has removed just 24% of published apps in comparison, as of the end of September.

Although Apple regularly cleans up its store from inappropriate or outdated content, its active application share still exceeds that of Android. It is likely that the more rigid application submission requirements prevent developers from publishing multiple trial or low quality applications whereas publishers in the Android Market place a lot of market testing, trials, demo and malware content. Over 78% of the apps removed from the Android Market were free, which could mean that publishers put more effort into the applications they place with the pay-per-download business model, thus ensuring that it is kept longer in store.

Android developers are significantly more productive than Apple’s. The average publisher on Android has placed more than 6 applications in the Market since launch, compared to just over 4 apps on average that have been published by iOS developers.

Over the past few months, the Android Market has been maintaining an exponential growth, but is still lagging behind the app store market leader, Apple. In Q3 of 2011, the number of active mobile applications in the Android Market stood at 319,161 compared to 459,589 in Apple App store.

Regarding the Windows Marketplace, the report stated

The share of deactivated apps in the WP7 Marketplace today stands at just 13%. However WP7 Marketplace is a comparably young store and many publishers are still exploring its potential. Fifteen months after its launch (comparable to the WP7 store now), the Android Market similarly had 86% of its apps active and a significant application store clean-up didn’t get started until the end of 2010.

Though there is no mention of the Nokia Store (previously known as the OVI STORE), we can assure you that there are a lot of useless/rogue/low quality apps in it, and the removal percentage of apps from the Nokia Store is very less, when compared to Windows Marketplace.

Mobile app downloads to reach 98 billion by 2015

News No Responses »

Oct 102011

Research firm Berg Insight has claimed that the number of apps downloaded globally will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 56.6 percent between 2010 and 2015, taking the total to 98 billion at the end of the period.

….revenues from paid applications, in-app purchases and subscription services – so called direct revenues – reached € 1.6 billion in 2010.

…direct app store revenues to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 40.7 percent to reach € 8.8 billion in 2015.

Apple’s App Store is forecast to remain at the Numero Uno spot during this period, followed by Android and Windows Phone.

Johan Svanberg, Senior Analyst quoted

Even though the download numbers will increase during the forecast period, most apps are free to download and app monetisation will be a challenge for developers.

Free to download monetisation strategies such as in-app advertising and in-app purchasing will be increasingly important. This is especially true in the APAC region, which will account for over 40 percent of all mobile app downloads in 2015.

He said that the future belongs to new web technologies such as HTML5, which would replace the native apps. Developers should not see the web and native technologies as “mutual exclusives” and should target the web and mobile platforms logically and strategically.

Android user base surges up, dwarfs iPhone user base by 2:1

News No Responses »

Sep 262011

The research firm Nielsen have recently revealed their numbers concerning the smartphone world. The results are not at all surprising.

Evidently, for every one iPhone user, there are two Android users. While the growth of iPhone has been stalled, there is a 13% increase in the Android user base.

RIM’s share is dropping. We hope that the new gen QNX phones might be able to save it. What is interesting here is that the iPhone 5 will be released soon. So these numbers will be changed in the next report.

Source: Nielsen

Gartner lowers forecast for Android tablets shipments

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Sep 252011

Gartner, the analyst firm, has lowered it’s forecast for the number of Android tablets shipped since it’s last prediction in the previous quarter. The projection has been lowered by as much as 28%.

The global media tablet sales to end users are to amount to 63.6 million units this year, which is a staggering 261.4% increase from 2010 sales of 17.6 million.

Android tablets are forecast to ship 11 million units in 2011, accounting for 17.3 percent of total sales – up only slightly from Android’s 2010 market share of 14.3 percent.

According to Gartner’s Carolina Milanesi

Google will address the fragmentation of Android across smartphone and tablet form factors within the next Android release [the Ice Cream Sandwich], which we expect to see in the fourth quarter of 2011…

…“Android can count on strong support from key OEMs, and has a sizeable developer community.

She also commented on the holistic picture

…We expect Apple to maintain a market share lead throughout our forecast period by commanding more than 50 percent of the market until 2014…

…This is because Apple delivers a superior and unified user experience across its hardware, software and services. Unless competitors can respond with a similar approach, challenges to Apple’s position will be minimal.

The data released by Gartner is as follows.

Worldwide Sales of Media Tablets to End Users by OS (Thousands of Units, September 2011)

The demand for MeeGo anad webOS is clearly out of proportions (pun intended). And QNX is also predicted not to sell well, adding to the woes of the already troubled RIM.

Since the demand for the tablets is very high, this makes me think about the future of laptops, netbooks and desktops.

Source: Gartner