App development is a lucrative sector to enter for developers. The app store module has made sure that apps become popular with users as well as profitable for developers to keep churning out more apps. The current app market is huge and is set to get bigger with the ever increasing penetration of smartphones worldwide. There is no doubt that mobile is the next biggest technology and market. How huge is the app market you say? Apple recently announced that it had seen 15billion app downloads till date. That’s a mind boggling number considering that the iPhone has not been so successful in price sensitive markets.
So we know smartphones are growing and the app development for these is also changing. The number of developers taking up project based app development for corporates is rising. This can be seen by some observations made by Freelancer.com. Here are some of the highlights from the press release and our analysis of what the app development sector looks destined for:
Freelance work for iPhone grew at 9%.
Apple’s iconic phone has been a huge success and app development for this platform remains the most profitable amongst all its competitors too. The momentum that this platform has achieved combined with Apple’s constant innovation will make sure that this platform remains a favorite with users and hence a favorite for app developers.
Android continues to outpace iOS and grew 20% over the last quarter.
We’ve all seen the smartphone market overrun by Android phones, they come in all shapes, sizes and prices. This has proved a huge strength for Google’s mobile operating system. Freelancer.com says that if Android continues to grow at this rate, it will overtake the amount of freelance work available for Apple by the end of 2012. But to assume this would be naive, need a hint? Recent reports suggest that the sales of these phones have slowed down, but that’s not the end of it. With recent developments, Android finds itself in a lot of trouble, Oracle’s law suit against Google for patent infringement might hurt the platform. Microsoft too is not giving up easy and has already signed a licensing agreement with an Android phone manufacturer and is looking to strike a similar deal with more of them.
Blackberry jobs fell by 6%
The biggest contrast here is that although the mobile app development market is on the rise, the demand for Blackberry app developers is dropping. Once heralded as the king of smartphones, the platform’s lack of innovation has led to the sad state that it is in today. The Blackberry App World has been around since 2009 but the interest that surrounds it is dismal. Users are either unaware or just don’t like the App World for its user experience. The platform is now third biggest platform,in a category that it once dominated . RIM’s latest gadget, the Playbook, too has failed to garner the same interest that the iPad managed.
[Download the report.]
