Mobile Applications, Smartphones will drive industry growth; AppStore “miles ahead” of its rivals
Despite the economic downturn, it is expected that the latest mobile applications for smartphones like BlackBerry and iPhone will drive industry growth in the coming years, providing alternate sources of revenue for operators.
A new report by Juniper Research forecasts that smartphones will account for 23% of all new handsets sold by 2013 (Cellular News). Another report by Informa forecasts 35 percent growth in sold smartphones in 2009 and according to The Washington Post, Gartner expects smartphone sales to jump in 2009.
The common element in these reports is the potential that innovative devices and applications have to promote mobile data consumption. This has industry players scrambling to secure their place in the value chain, including content providers, handset vendors and application developers.
Handset vendors need to diversify into high-value content to offset falling margins on handset sales. On the side of content providers, Facebook is reported to be in talks with a number of mobile phone manufacturers to more tightly embed access to its services within the phone menus. RIM, who is launching BlackBerry App World later this month; Microsoft announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona the launch of Windows Mobile marketplace, which will allow developers to build and sell Windows Mobile applications. Both will compete head to head with Apple’s AppStore
Handset vendors need to diversify into high-value content to offset falling margins on handset sales. On the side of content providers, Facebook is reported to be in talks with a number of mobile phone manufacturers to more tightly embed access to its services within the phone menus. RIM, who is launching BlackBerry App World later this month; Microsoft announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona the launch of Windows Mobile marketplace, which will allow developers to build and sell Windows Mobile applications. Both will compete head to head with Apple’s AppStore
Read the full write up by Raul Castanon here.
There is a tremendous potential for developing such content and applications for the Arab world.
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