The market for apps created for feature phones will almost double to US$1 billion by 2016, according to Ovum – fuelled by apps growth in the smartphone space. The analyst firm forecasts that feature phones will still account for the largest share of devices worldwide by this point, at 2.3 billion (a 63 percent global share compared to 37 percent for smartphones).

In a new study, Ovum states that improvements which have made both developing and publishing feature phone apps easier, the larger size of the market and reduced competition mean that the sector has the potential to be more lucrative for some developers.

“While feature phone users vastly outnumber smartphone users, the apps market hasn’t taken off in the same way,” said Ovum’s Nick Dillon. “This is largely because it has lacked the distribution channels to enable widespread adoption. However, inspired by the success of apps in the smartphone market, the options have improved drastically, with many larger handset manufacturers, operators and third parties now offering improved distribution programmes for feature phones.”

The report finds that,despite its age, JavaME software is the best option for developing feature phone apps, but Nokia web widgets and Opera Mini widgets also enable simple applications using web technologies. In addition, options for web development will be further improved by the introduction of HTML5-capable browsers, which Ovum anticipates will become widespread on feature phones in the next 12–18 months.