Report: iPhone App Market is Already Worth $2.4B?

UPDATE: See Developers Call BS On $2.4B iPhone App Store Number

The iPhone App market could be worth $2.4 billion a year, reporter Om Malik of GigaOm estimates based on new numbers from the mobile advertising firm AdMob.

This is a very big number for such a new marketplace; no wonder Microsoft, Google, Palm and everyone else is trying to replicate it.

AdMob is a mobile advertising firm that serves up ads inside apps running on the iPhone, iPod touch and Google’s Android phones. In a survey of more than 1,000 users in July, Ad Mob found:

* Apple’s App Store sells $200 million worth of applications every month, a run rate of about $2.4 billion a year, according to Malik.

* Android apps are bringing in about $5 million a month, or $60 million a year.

* iPhone users download about 10 apps per month, and one in four apps is paid for.

* iPod touch users download 18 apps a month, but only two of those are paid for.

* 50% of iPhone users download at least one paid app a month.

* 40% of iPod touch users download at least one paid app a month.

* Users who download paid apps spend about $10 per month; and the average app price is under $2.00.

The upshot: Users are happy to spend money on apps, especially if they geta chance to ry them frst with a free or lite version.

Comment »