According to the latest projections from Juniper Research, over $75 billion will be spent on consumer apps in 2017.
This will be largely as a result of the in-app purchase model gaining continued traction across many markets, and the impact of new monetization models used by developers and storefronts.
The report, Future App Stores: Discovery, Monetization & Ecosystem Analysis 2013 – 2018, explores how the growing app ecosystem will be strengthened as storefronts such as Microsoft and Amazon attempt to advance against the effective duopoly which Apple and Google presently have.
Juniper finds that the intensifying competition will lead to the release of new features within these stores, such as better search and discovery tools, encouraging developers to write their apps for the more peripheral stores.
The report also indicated that to 2017, the proportion of revenue accrued from apps paid for at the point of download would fall to almost a quarter of the $75 billion total.
“This presents a challenge for developers who are seeking to maximize the number of users and revenues from their app,” Juniper says, despite the research firm’s discovery that developers at the cutting edge of the market were using business models which allowed them to monetize 100% of their user base, through a combination of advertising and in-app purchases.
“It is not only developers who are seeking to capitalize on their user base; many app stores are also implementing carrier billing to ensure that unbanked consumers are able to pay for apps, which will contribute to the strong growth in app downloads,” says report author Siân Rowlands.