Market for mobile app development services reached $20.5 billion in 2011

BERLIN, GERMANY: In 2011, publishers created $6.8 billion in application download revenues while app development revenues reached $20.5 billion. The development service became a mass market almost three times of the size of the application download market today.Source: Research2Guidance.com.

The market for mobile application development services, including application creation, management, distribution and extension services, has reached $20.5 billion vs. $6.8 billion in app downloads in 2011. Thus the development market surpassed the content market by the factor of 3.

Today, most app project revenue is generated from “classical” app creation services (concept creation, design and coding). New service types like app libraries, white label solutions and multi platform app development tools have become more and more popular, but do not yet take a major share of the market.

Prices for application development services vary significantly between regions. UK developers charge $626 per day whereas competitors from India charge, on average, $138 per working day.

App development partners using price as the main criteria for selection will not be lead to an optimal solution as most of the price differences are offset by the additional time needed by offshore app developers.