It is no secret anymore that Apple is shattering pre-sales records with the new iPhone. Apparently, more than 600,000 phones have been ordered in just one day. What is much more interesting, are the forecasts just how far this new phone can go. Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty thinks Apple may be able to expand its user base to 100 million iPhone owners and users. She believes that about 42 million fourth-generation iPhones could be sold by the end of the year.
We know that Huberty is usually among the more optimistic analysts – especially since her rather controversial iPad sales predictions, but even if she is slightly off, those numbers are huge. Huberty thinks that the iPhone 4 is attractive enough so that Apple can triple its user base within 18 months. That should have some impact on its market share which is currently just above 5% of the entire cell phone market, according to Gartner.
So what does that mean for application developers? Obviously that’s good news as the market expands and iPhone/iPad users are getting more and more used to how those apps of a smartphone or tablet work. However, there is another statistic out by ABI Research, which now says that, by 2015, some 1.2 billion apps will be downloaded (Overall, not just Apple). We are not quite sure where that number exactly comes from, especially since ABI quotes the most recent number of more than 200,000 available iPhone apps and we also know that Apple said earlier this year that more than 3 billion apps have been downloaded within 18 months of the launch of the AppStore.
ABI believes that competition will play a role in available apps and app sales and therefore says that downloads will peak sometime during 2012 and 2013. The market research firm noted that there are many apps that do not provide much value. Neil Strother, practice director at ABI, explained: “When considering the value of mobile apps as marketing tools, planners need to take a step back from all the hoopla and ask themselves, ‘How will those work for my brand? Is it right for me? What is my audience doing? Do I even have a large mobile audience? If so, how do I craft an effective strategy?’”
So yes, while we have a tough time finding a way to back up ABI’s numbers, we do agree that app strategy absolutely matters if you are trying to come up with a successful app.