Monday, 16 August 2010

Just seven apps drive smartphone design

Twitter,  banking and Voice as key design drivers on the road to 7bn downloads 

By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk

Smartphone manufacturers need to accommodate seven core smartphone applications, the “Big Seven,” in their next-generation handset designs, according to In-Stat (www.in-stat.com).   These big seven applications include email, games, social networking, instant messaging, mapping & directions, music & radio, and weather. Combined, the big seven will account for 7 billion downloads worldwide in 2014.
  “In-Stat tracks 26 different categories of smartphone applications,” says Frank Dickson, VP of Research.  “A designer can optimize a handset for any one of the application categories. However, it's the big seven applications that phone designers need to accommodate in each and every device.”
Recent research by In-Stat found the following:
  • The three applications that have the highest compound annual growth rates through 2014 are micro blogging, mobile banking and VoIP.
  • The number of Android apps downloaded is growing at the fastest rate; however, Apple applications still dominate both free and paid downloads.  2012 witnesses the last of the Palm OS application downloads.
  • The tsunami of mobile applications has created a hyper-competitive market putting significant pressure on prices and margins.
  • Productivity applications such as mapping, business and enterprise applications and phone tools & utilities generate 59% of all smartphone application revenue.  

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