The global market for mobile applications is forecast to reach US$17.5 billion in the next two years, according to a new report commissioned by GetJar, claimed to be the world’s second largest app store. The study claimed the number of downloads would climb from 7 billion last year to 50 billion by 2012 – a 92 percent year-on-year increase. Apple’s App Store is the leading player, but GetJar said that the number of app stores had risen from just four before 2008 to 48 today. “We wanted to find out the real value of the industry because we felt certain segments like the iPhone were being over-hyped and so-called feature phones were being under-hyped,” GetJar founder and chief executive officer Ilja Laurs told the BBC. He questioned some of the valuations of Apple’s apps business and said that the impact of feature phones (rather than smartphones) in the apps market was being overlooked. “It is almost as if these phones don’t exist,” he said. “We know smartphones are an extremely important phenomenon, but in terms of consumer mindshare and revenue share, feature phones represent 90 percent of the global market compared to 10 percent for smartphones and data cards.”

The study found that ‘off-deck’ paid-for apps will be the biggest revenue generator by 2012, accounting for almost 50 percent of all apps revenue. By comparison, in 2009, ‘on-deck’ apps available from mobile operators accounted for over 60 percent of all apps revenue, but is forecast to fall to just under 23 percent by 2012. On a regional basis, the study forecast that apps revenues in Europe would rise from US$1.5billion in 2009 to US$8.5billion in 2012, while in North America the figure would rise from around US$2.1billion to around US$6.7 billion over the same period.