Data revealed today by the HIS claims that despite the increasing might of app stores which cater to the markets of its rival platforms; Apple is still the undisputed leader in terms of the app store for its iOS platform. The report from HIS, which recently took over the technology research firm iSupply, says that the net worth of applications sold by Apple in 2010 was estimated at around $1.78 billion, which is a 132% improvement over its sales in 2009 which managed to rake in $769 million. Another significant change that 2010 brought was the loss of market share that Apple had to face in the light of its stronger competitors. However, its monopoly over the market, 82.7 percent to be precise, is still very strong, although not as much as the 92.8 percent that it had enjoyed the year before.
One of the most important contributors to the considerable growth of sales in Apple’s app store was the launch of its tablet, the iPad, which took the world by storm, almost the same way as the iPhone and the iPod had done. While the users of iPhone far outnumber those who own an iPad, the average cost charged by Apple for iPad apps is higher than that for the iPhone which contributes a major percentage to the total sales. The HIS even predicts that the iPad app sales would rise to almost 50% of Apple’s total sales come 2014, the current fraction being 20%.
However, Apple’s dominance in the market seems to be on a decline, a very slight one though, after many rivals pulled up on its market share last year. Android from Google was the highest growing platform for its rising popularity in the non-Apple domain. It is currently at the fourth spot, behind RIM and Nokia.
