Market research firm Gartner predicts that mobile customers will download 17.7 billion apps this year, spending more than $15.1 billion. That’s a 117 percent increase in downloads over 2010’s 8.2 billion apps, and a 190 percent increase in revenue over 2010’s $5.2 billion.
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“Many are wondering if the app frenzy we have been witnessing is just a fashion, and, like many others, it shall pass. We do not think so,” said Gartner’s Stephanie Baghdassarian. “We strongly believe there is a sizable opportunity for application stores in the future. However, applications will have to grow up and deliver a superior experience to the one that a Web-based app will be able to deliver. Native apps will survive the Web enhancements only when they will provide a more-personal and richer experience to the vanilla experience that a Web-based app will deliver.”
