100 Million Mobile Users to Access App Stores by 2013

It seems that mobile application stores are expected to see a growing popularity in the years to come, at least this is what a recently publishes research report from In-Stat states. The number of smartphone users that are likely to access app stores for their devices is expected to reach 100 million by 2013, says the report, based on the popularity the Apple iPhone mobile application store has and on the fact that other industry players have already made a move in this direction, with others to follow in the near future.

Nowadays, only a fourth of the projected 100 million users are accessing mobile application portals from their smartphones, and a large number of them is comprised of only iPhone users. Yet Google already allowed third-party developers to come up with applications for its Android mobile operating system, and things are expected to change in the near future.

At the same time, the highly expected Palm Pre, which is slated for release on the market as soon as the second quarter of the ongoing year, should also see a lot of traction from third-party application developers, and In-Stat predicts that the total number of smartphone users that will tap into application portals should increase four times by 2013.

As many of you might already know, the OSes running on these smartphones are open platforms, allowing developers to come up with applications especially written for them. At the same time, said applications are sold or offered for free mainly through mobile app stores rather than via the carriers that also distribute the handsets.

According to David Chamberlain, a principal analyst with In-Stat, around 100 million smartphone users, or a third of their total number, will have the possibility to access a mobile app portal. What we are able to see at the moment, he says, is only a fraction of what the future will bring to us, and that fraction is currently led by Apple's iPhone.

Another thing that is likely to change in the future is the availability of free mobile applications, driven by the fact that most third-party developers, as well as the operators of mobile applications, would find it rather difficult to turn advertising into a profitable business.