The increasing availability of free applications will drive the number of U.S. downloads to reach 6.67 billion in 2014 from all applications stores, according to a report published by Frost & Sullivan today. Release.
The research firm found that free applications is what is driving the U.S. smartphone app store market, along with the more advanced capabilities of devices, such as touchscreens, accelerometers, internet browsing and location-based services. Hitting almost 7 billion downloads in the U.S. sounds achievable over the next five years given that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has already hit 1 billion worldwide. The trend will only grow with other app stores from Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Palm (NSDQ: PALM), Google (NSDQ: GOOG), BlackBerry and Nokia (NYSE: NOK), just getting off the ground.
But Frost & Sullivan cautions that the various app store providers are going to face challenges as they try to differentiate their offerings and manage the stores in the most cost-effective way possible, reports Cellular-News. Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst Vikrant Gandhi: “Unless the app store providers establish exclusivity agreements with application developers – something that is not feasible for a large majority of applications – it will be difficult to provide enough differentiation through the app stores….Outsourcing or white-labeling of the app store business might become a good idea in the long run since a device vendor or an operating system provider may not want to commit large resources to manage the smartphone app store business.”

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