Wow, some smartphone users spent a lot of money on apps for their smartphones a whopping 16.5% spent between $100 and $499 .
The stats are from survey of 235 US smartphone users who installed applications on
their devices in 2008, conducted by ABI Research in November. The level of
spending is especially significant given the low cost of most mobile
applications, ranging from as little as a dollar or two at Apple's
iPhone App Store, to at most about $25.
Those low App Store prices are one of the contentious issues
discussed in a new global ABI Research study of mobile application
storefronts.
"Apple is seen by some as hurting the market with its iPhone App
Store," says senior analyst Jeff Orr, "It drives the price of content
down to $1-2, using a model similar to its successful iTunes music
store. If you exclude Apple from the mix, applications for other
platforms cost about $7-25 each."
Many developers, lacking the resources to author applications for
all available smartphone platforms, have to focus on one. That means
they have a "margin vs. volume" quandary: sell many copies for the
iPhone at a very low price of which the developer receives 70%, or sell
fewer via one of the other application storefronts, but charge a higher
price and earn more per transaction.
"On the other hand," says Orr, "Apple did a lot for the market with
its massive marketing effort telling the public how great mobile
content is. That created a 'halo' effect for the rest of the industry:
other device manufacturers and content developers working on non-Apple
platforms all saw a bump in sales and downloads because there's more
awareness of the smartphone category. In 2009 a number of new mobile
application storefronts will be launched from Nokia, Palm, RIM and
Samsung."
"Mobile Application Storefronts" describes the emergence of on-deck
and web-based application storefronts for smartphones. It explains the
general business models and examines Apple's iTunes App Store in
detail. It explores major market trends and opportunities and forecasts
revenue and unit downloads from mobile application storefronts
2008~2013.