99.4% of all mobile app sales came from Apple in 2009

Although Apple may not reign as the number one handset maker in the world, at least they have another area in the market where they stand firmly at the top – with a grasp that doesn’t look to loosen anytime soon. Market research firm Gartner suggests that mobile apps are going to be even more profitable and that business will continue to rise in the next few years. Apple completely dominated the mobile app market in 2009 and grabbed almost all of the 4.2 billion dollars spent on mobile apps – and they can continue to keep a good hold onto it with at least two-thirds of the market if sales trends continue to hold for 2010.

Apple has recently announced that sales passed 3 billion; with 2.5 billion apps download in 2009. Gartner’s research showed apps that came from other platforms tallied at a total of 16 million – giving Apple roughly 99.4 percent of all mobile apps sold for the year. According to Stephanie Bagdassarian, research director at Gartner, "Games remain the number one application, and mobile shopping, social networking, utilities and productivity tools continue to grow and attract increasing amounts of money."

Predictions of Apple’s future ventures outside the iPhone can cause them to gain an even larger share of the mobile app market – that’s factoring in the additional users from sales of new iPhone models and the expected tablet. There’s no doubt how much money is in stake in the mobile app market; especially with the Android platform steadily rising among users. Unlike Android, which have multiple models to choose from, Apple will need to branch out to other carriers in order to keep their foothold in the mobile app market.

via Ars Technica