Consumer spending on mobile application stores will reach US$6.2 billion this year, according to new Gartner figures. Combined with expected advertising revenues of around US$0.6 billion, total app store revenues are forecast to hit US$6.77 billion in 2010. The research firm said that app stores will exceed 4.5 billion downloads this year, and surpass 21.6 billion by 2013. Free downloads will account for 82 percent of all downloads in 2010, and will account for 87 percent of downloads in 2013, the firm said. Download revenue is said to have exceeded US$4.2 billion in 2009 and will grow to US$29.5 billion by the end of 2013. This revenue forecast includes end-user spending on paid-for applications and advertising-sponsored free applications. Advertising-sponsored mobile applications will generate almost 25 percent of mobile application stores revenue by 2013.

“As smartphones grow in popularity and application stores become the focus for several players in the value chain, more consumers will experiment with application downloads,” said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner. “Games remain the No. 1 application, and mobile shopping, social networking, utilities and productivity tools continue to grow and attract increasing amounts of money.”