Mobile Apps Get Top Dollar In U.S.Mobile Apps Get Top Dollar In U.S.

Mobile device users in North America pay a lot more for mobile applications than consumers in other geographic regions, a study shows.

Smartphone applications in North America have an average selling price of $1.09, while in the next closest region, Europe, the ASP is below $0.80, according to a study by wireless consultant Chetan Sharma. The report, released Wednesday, was commissioned by Getjar, an online mobile app store.

For developers, the study shows that mobile advertising will play a more significant role in revenue generation in Indonesia, Brazil, India and China, where app prices are low. "For the emerging markets, it is a volumes game," the study said.

The findings show that in the current market, North America is where the money is for mobile applications. While the number of downloads in other countries sometimes exceeds that of in North America, the amount of revenue generated in the latter is considerably more.

The study also found that the number of downloads of mobile applications is rising quickly. Downloads are forecast to soar from more than 7 billion last year to almost 50 billion by 2012, a compound annual growth rate of 92%.

During the same timeframe, the amount of revenue from paid downloads, advertising and virtual goods is expected to rise from $4.1 billion to $17.5 billion, a CAGR of 62%.

Mobile phone subscriptions are expected to exceed 5 billion by the end of 2210, with more than 27% of them being data subscribers, excluding messaging, the study said. In the next three years, that number is expected to reach 45%, with North America leading the way with almost 60%. In the U.S., nearly all smartphone and many feature phones require buyers to have a data subscription.

In the U.S., Research in Motion's Blackberry platform accounted for 41.6% of the smartphone market in the last quarter of 2009, followed by Apple's iPhone, 25.3%, according to ComScore.