Half Of US Mobile App Revenue From Location Based Services: Report
Telephia (now renamed to Nielsen Mobile) has issued a report indicating the strength of the location based services market. I have to assume the following figures are for the US only: Around 13 million people downloaded a mobile application to their handset in the second quarter, generating $118 million in revenue. Of that revenue, LBS represented 51 percent. It should be noted that’s not 51 percent of the downloads, since the LBS applications tend to be 2-3 times more expensive than other applications, so it has a lower penetration in the market. The average LBS download cost $9.23, compared to Personal Organization Tools ($5.41), Music ($4.99), Sports ($4.58), Maps/Directions ($3.95), Weather ($3.82) and Wallpapers/Pictures ($3.29). I note that “games” isn’t on the list. (release)
Surely this is incorrect? Or does it exclude the ringtone market all together?
What is the definition of app? I assume it does not include mobile internet sites i.e. WAP?
An application is a program that runs on the handset, so would exclude WAP sites, as well as subscription services, and probably content downloads that aren't actually a program — such as ringtones and images. Most of the mobile music industry would be music files, which wouldn't count as an app, and most wallpapers/pictures would be just image files.
So basically Telephia got it all fuckt up. All these research firms only guess at best, waste of space if you rely on them for figures…