Edible Apple

Whether or not you believe Apple app store success is rooted in dumb luck or foresight, there’s no denying that Apple’s been on the vanguard of a mobile app industry that has quickly become a multi-billion dollar business.

Following in Apple’s footsteps, competitors like Google, Nokia, RIM, and Microsoft have all released competing app stores in an attempt to keep customers from defecting to other platforms. By and large, though, the app store race at this point in time consists of Apple and Google duking it out with the rest of the players fighting for table scraps.

Recently, market research firm IHS released some data detailing the market share of app stores across various platforms and how much money each is raking in.

Expectedly, Apple’s iTunes App Store is at the top of the heap with an 82.7% share of all app downloads and $1.78 billion in revenue. Though growing by over 120% in the last year alone, Apple’s overall share of the mobile app market has dipped from a previous share of 92.8% due to the emergence of competing stores.

Somewhat surprisingly, RIM’s BlackBerry App World is in second place both in terms of market share and revenue. In 2010 RIM’s mobile app store accounted for 7.7% of app downloads while generating revenue of $165 million thanks to business-centric software that warrants higher asking prices.

In third comes Nokia’s somewhat unknown Ovi Store which in 2010 accounted for a 4.9% share on revenue of $105 million. And coming in last is Google’s Android Market which garnered a 4.7% share in 2010 and generated revenue of $102 million.

Year over year, the iTunes App Store grew by 131.9% while RIM and Google’s app stores grew by 719 and 861% respectively.

via AppleInsider