Less than .01% of mobile apps will be considered successful by 2018

Don't quit your day job. That is the rule of thumb that we would suggest to developers who think that they might be able to make a living writing mobile apps. According to research firm Gartner, off all paid apps, 90% are downloaded less than 500 times a day,which works out to less than $1250 a day in revenue on average. Gartner analyst Ken Delaney says that most mobile apps are not in the black and are used for product recognition or just for fun.

Gartner also pointed out that there are about 200 companies writing mobile app programs with millions of developers writing apps as well. And yes, smartphone users are eating them up. Earlier Monday, we showed you a chart from Flurry which showed that downloads of mobile apps were up 115% in 2013. Last week, Apple said that its customers spent more than $10 billion on apps last year, including $1 billion just in December. Since 2008, developers of mobile apps for iOS have banked $15 billion. Developers get to keep 70 cents of each dollar with Apple receiving the rest.

Delaney figures that by 2016, 94.5% of available mobile apps will be free. And the high quality of these apps has set a pretty high bar for developers hoping to earn a living as a code jockey. But by 2018, Gartner says that of these developers, they will consider only .01% of mobile apps to be a success by 2018. Those are not good odds for a successful career.

source: Forbes