Mobile app sales forecast to top $16 billion by 2013

The global mobile applications market, including games, will grow to $16.6 billion in 2013--up from $4.6 billion in 2009--according to a new forecast issued by market research and consulting firm Wireless Expertise. The forecast ties the growth to increasing smartphone penetration: Wireless Expertise anticipates that smartphone sales will jump from 165 million in 2009 to 423 million in 2013, with the total number of smartphone users approaching 1.6 billion.

"We expect smartphone growth to have a positive impact on the number of application downloads in the short- to mid-term," Wireless Expertise CEO Anuj Khanna said in a prepared statement. "Strong revenues are expected to come from low-end mass market smartphones and mid-to high-end feature-phones in the mid- to long-term as operators and handset manufacturers take app stores to the mass market."

Wireless Expertise blames the complacency of existing handset vendors and mobile operators for virtually killing off the mobile content market, and credits Apple for revolutionizing demand for multimedia content and applications. "However, we expect Apple to face tough competition from mobile operators, independent service providers and competing vendor application portals in the next 18-24 months," Khanna said, suggesting Nokia will be very active in the smartphone market, buoyed by its ability to offer Ovi services on a wide range of handsets.

For more on the Wireless Expertise study:
- read this release