Consumers love adding applications to their new smartphones, and they are willing to pay for it. According to ABI Research, nearly 17% of users who installed new applications are spending upwards of $100 adding them--from games to even more specialized business programs--to their devices.
"Compared with the cost of most of these devices, it's the first time we've seen applications exceed the cost of the phones," Jeff Orr, ABI's senior analyst for mobile content, tells Marketing Daily. The level of spending is even more considerable when taking into account that many of the applications come at a low cost--as low as 99 cents apiece in Apple's iPhone App Store, Orr says.
In 2009, companies such as Nokia, RIM, Palm and Samsung plan to launch new mobile application storefronts to keep up with the growing sales of smartphones.
The percentage of people using smartphones is growing categorically. In a recent study, comScore found that the number of people downloading games--the most popular segment of downloads--grew 17% between November 2007 and November 2008. The number of actual games downloaded increased 34% in that same time period. This number is likely to increase as more smartphones hit the market, including a new entry from Palm coming in March.
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