Gartner: Apple made 99.4% of all phone app sales revenue in 2009, only the beginning

Seth Weintraub
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January 18, 2010
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You could say that Apple is so far dominating the market for apps in portable devices.  Or you could, like a Gartner report reported by Ars states, say that Apple is absolutely obliterating the rest of the field.  Using their slide rules and impecable guessing abilities, they've concluded that Apple is responsible for all but .6% of the global market in app sales.  And that is without a tablet store.

That's just the begining. As app sales increase, estimated revenues go from $4.2 billion in 2009 to $6.8 billion this year, to about $30 billion in 2013.

The report also noted that advertising wsa going to play a bigger part in app revenue and that Apple picking up Quattro was a smart move.

Comments (11)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 18, 2010 - 10:02pm

Wow!

Violian (not verified) | January 18, 2010 - 11:46pm

I wonder if one day, everyone will look back and say "wow, that was just a fad." Like the days of pogs, Pokemon trading cards, the return of yo-yo's, and gigapets in the mid-90's....I thought they were unstoppable. They were flying off the shelves like Crazy...some Pokemon cards going for as much as $40 a piece!

Phil (not verified) | January 19, 2010 - 12:36am

Anything's possible. Hopefully though it'll be a case of "never look back".

Whether you're an Apple owner or not, this is all good news for both users, developers and publishers. The and desktop markets have been lacking some of that 1980's innovation, and it's good to see it get a shot of adrenaline. Bring it on, I say.

buy sdhc card (not verified) | January 19, 2010 - 1:23am

Whoever it may be apple or somone else we the people are always happy to say 'WOH' what a shot. This is a great achievement by Apple and I hope it will continue in the coming year.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 19, 2010 - 2:18am

um...why?

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 19, 2010 - 6:26am

This chart needs some additional clarification in the wording.

By total App sales you mean total qty of units sold, correct?

Sales and revenue are one in the same, so I'm guessing you mean total units sold and revenues collected.

chano (not verified) | January 19, 2010 - 10:19am

3,018,108,652 apps sold, in total.

3,000,000,000 sold by Apple (99.4%) ...... and counting

      18,108,652 sold by all the rest  (0.6%)

Nice!

kirasaw (not verified) | January 19, 2010 - 7:27pm

Look I am a huge Apple Fan but this post is why people complain about Apple fans. Take a minute to actually read the article. It says 99.4% of REVENUE went to Apple NOT 99.4% of unit sales. Free Apps still make up the bulk of Apps. So overall unit sales have very little relation to revenue.

rd4sndk (not verified) | January 19, 2010 - 10:41am

Mobile apps may become bigger than the numbers projected for 2013.   Mobile apps include books, movies, videos, TV, games and other consumer media products.  That market potential is greater than $500Billion and mobile will have access to all of it while dominating most of it.  Apple will command a minimum of 40% of that market given its currently #1 in:


1. Mobile apps


2. music down load


3. mobile gaming


4. MP3 players w/ mobile apps capability


5. Smart Phones


6. Mobile apps usage and growth


 

iphonerulez (not verified) | January 19, 2010 - 10:45am

Microsoft Windows is literally crushing Apple to death.  Ballmer's "rounding error" statement is coming true.  Apple's Mac OSX has lost another .1% of desktop market share to Microsoft Windows over the last quarter.  Mark my words, Apple will be out of business by the middle of 2010 as an even greater amount of netbooks are sucked up by MS Windows lovers, possibly at a lowered price of $150 apiece.  Microsoft will then start a campaign during the summer of 2010 saying, "Buy a Windows 7 Home license and get a Windows PC for free."  Guaranteed to boost Windows desktop market another .2% and sending Apple retail store employees on an extended vacation.  Steve Jobs will call it quits and Microsoft will buy up all remaining Macs and use them as Seattle landfill.

 

Apple will be known as the company that never stood a chance of beating Microsoft at the computer game.

JScott (not verified) | January 19, 2010 - 11:41am

• I wonder about their revenue estimates - they are using $1.68 per app in 2009 and $1.51 per app in 2010. Since Apple counts free apps in their figures (note that Apple says apps "downloaded" not "sold") I think that the average price per app downloaded may be $1 or less. I know many people who have mostly free apps, and a few very cheap ones.

 

• Apple has pretty much created this new model for distributing apps - the app store which is integrated into the mobile devices OS unlike the old Palm systems which required a lot of steps to add an application. M$, Android and Nokia are now rolling out their versions of the same concept. It will be interesting to see how perform compared to Apple. Apple may continue to be a leader, but probably not at 99%+ of the market.

 

• Mobile apps do not include music and video "content" files, as one poster suggested