The rise and rise of mobile apps

The app market is growing rapidly (473,000 and counting) but Apple is not the only one enjoying the rise. Despite Apple being the market leader in terms of absolute numbers, Blackberry’s App World and Nokia’s Ovi Store have both enjoyed triple digit growth last year, according to Distimo.

The analytic company’s 2010 report found that previous trends are starting to change as the number of apps continues to soar. Apple’s App Store for the iPhone has seen a shift towards more business applications, indicating that consumers now see the iPhone as a productivity tool. By contrast, Blackberry’s App World attracts more entertainment focused applications, despite its reputation as a predominantly business handset (perhaps due to the increasing popularity of BBM).

The iPhone store has doubled its total number of apps to 300,000 over the past year. The Android Market enjoyed a six-fold increase to almost 130,000 apps, while the Blackberry store reached 18,000 apps.

The report found that while the proportion of free applications grew last year, the average price of paid applications dropped.

The Angry Birds game was the most popular paid-for app for the iPhone, while, unsurprisingly, Facebook was the number one free app. For the iPad, Apple’s Pages software was the leading paid-for app, while Apple’s iBook reader topped the free app chart.

Google estimates that there are now more than 500,000 apps running on over 150 million mobile devices. The app market is estimated to be worth $2 billion a year (growing to $4 billion by 2012).

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