European mobile application market size reached 1.68 billion Euro in 2012

EUROPE: The market for mobile applications has become a multi Euro business. In 2012 publishers in the top five European countries will have generated 1.68 billion. Euros with paid application downloads, in-app purchasing and in-app advertising. The growth rate during the initial years is above 140 percent.

Since 2008 (the initial full year of the new application eco system) the market has changed from a niche „gaming and entertainment“channel for players on-the-move to an „app“hype with more than 2 mio. applications published. The hype is similar to the „www.“ hype in the early 2000s, but five to seven times faster.

The European application market represents approximately 20 percent of the global market. The biggest European app markets are:  UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and France. They account for 15 percent of the global app market.

Among those top 5 EU countries, there are significant differences in size and structure of the domestic markets. This directly impacts the platform and business model decisions every publisher must make before setting up an app project.