1 million Mobile Apps in the Marketplace; Windows Phone apps more profitable and gaining developer support at iPhone app expense?

Sacbee reports that the general marketplace of all apps is approaching 1 million. Actually it’s already passed 1 million because they’ve kindly forgotten Nokia’s offerings as usual.

There’s 60,000 apps in Nokia Store (majority Symbian with duplicates/triplicates for variants, then S40, then MeeGo-Harmattan). There’s also about 1000 webOS apps? (That’s just a guess. I think my touchpad already has all that’s available). Not sure when this data was collected but based on known milestones it’s a little behind.

In terms of app interest, the break down is apparently as follows:

• Entertainment 16.68%
• Games 13.36%
• Books 10.21%
• Lifestyle 8.02%
• Utilities 7.13%
• Education 7.08%
• Travel 4.84%
• Business 3.76%
• Reference 3.73%
• Music 3.32%
• Health & Fitness 3.28%
• Productivity 3.09%
• Sports 2.92%
• News 2.85%
• Social Networking 2.71%.
• Info from mobilewalla.com

Whilst we’re here I might as well group all the Marketplace related news.  WMPoweruser reporting on some Finance.Yahoo.com data says that Windows Phone is growing, and at the expense of iPhone app store apparently.

Studies by Strategic Analytics suggest that Windows Phone 7 market will grow 167% in developer support.  iPhone App store on the other hand will shrink by 26% and Blackberry by 80%. Note the key terms here are “developer support” and that these are percentages in growth. Small things can grow quickly and easier to show but that is not a certainty. Just look at BlackBerry. It’s interesting again that Nokia’s offerings are completely missed out.

Finally on point – you may remember before some reports suggesting Nokia Store was much more lucrative for developers as they get more downloads there than Apple’s App Store. That’s precicely what CJ shares based on a report from  Anlock. In short with more apps there’s more noise. But it doesn’t mean either than it’s just all down to the fact there aren’t any apps either. You also need to have a large enough user base of people willing to download apps. This again unfortunately for RIM is shown off by BlackBerry who has neither apps nor people who want to download/buy apps. More so now they’re pushing people to Android market with QNX.

In Anlock, they show how a developer with NO marketing in Windows Phone market place generated more revenue than App Store where there was 5 times more sales on WP7 than iOS.

Right now, WP market place is prime picking. There are huge opportunities for developers as the user base increases, (significantly due to Nokia’s involvement). We should see much better numbers next year, although obviously will not catch up to either Android or iOS any time soon. But then again – like we said with Nokia Store, we don’t need to. As long as the quality apps are there (quality as in well made not just the ‘useful’ apps) then Nokia and MS will have solid legs to stand on. They’ve always harped on about Android never being able to reach iOS, never having apps – once Android reached a certain threshold where it was often considered by developers, the app debate between the two was a non issue. Hopefully Nokia and Microsoft will be able to attract more developers

Sources: Sacbee,  mobilewalla, Strategic Analytic, Finance.Yahoo.com, Anlock

Via: WMPoweruser, ZOMGitsCJ

Cheers Joni for the tip!

Category: Nokia