In brief
The global app market was forecast in 2016 to exceed US$100 billion by 2020. Growth was expected to be driven by Asia’s emerging markets, with gaming apps dominating revenue and downloads rising as more people used smartphones for the first time.
According to the data, rising demand in Asia’s emerging markets will drive the global mobile application(App) market to more than US$100 billion (approximately HK$780 billion) by 2020.
The data indicates that this year, the global app market will reach US$50.9 billion, up 24% year on year, and will then grow at an annual rate of 20% over the four years to 2020.
In the Asia-Pacific region, the app market will expand to US$57.5 billion by 2020, doubling this year’s estimated US$28.3 billion, driven primarily by China’s app market.
Sales at Apple’s App Store are expected to reach US$44.8 billion by 2020, followed by Google Play Store with sales of US$34 billion.Gaming apps are expected to dominate the app market by 2020 with revenue of US$74.6 billion, while music and video streaming apps are also expected to become more popular in the future.
This year, global app downloads are expected to rise 33% year on year to 147.3 billion, before increasing further to 284.3 billion by 2020. Industry observers attribute this to the growing number of people worldwide using smartphones for the first time.
http://www2.hkej.com/instantnews/international/article/1241467