Android apps to overtake iPhone downloads

 

Mobile phone users will download 18 billion apps this year.

Android users are set to download more apps than Apple iPhone customers for the first time, said researchers.

The total number of downloaded mobile phone apps is predicted to hit 18 billion this year, a huge jump from the 7.4 billion downloads in 2010, according to telecoms analysts Ovum.

And Google’s Android operating system (OS) will take the biggest share of games, news, weather and other applications with a predicted 8.1 billion downloads, compared to 6 billion for Apple.

This is largely down to the huge number of phones now running the Android OS - including many budget handsets targeted at people who can’t quite stretch to an iPhone or top of the range HTC.

In the second quarter of 2011, Android accounted for 46% of all smartphones sold, while Apple was in second place with 20%.

Ovum also predicts that the trend will continue, with Android reaching 21.8 billion by 2016, compared to a predicted 11.6 billion for the Apple App Store.

However, affluent Apple users are much happier to pay out for their apps. Apple is expected to keep its first-place position in the paid-for apps market, with an expected $2.86billion (£1.79billion) revenue in 2016. This compares to a predicted $1.5billion (£940million) for Android OS.

Vodafone recently announced that UK customers would soon be able to pay for apps via their mobile phone bill or pay as you go credit - allowing customers without a credit card to buy apps in a bid to boost revenue.

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