There is no reason to be preoccupied with Apple

The WAC initiative allows mobile operators to improve their position in application space.

According to Allistair Hill, a Senior Analyst at comScore, a company providing demographic data related to online browsing, buying, and various online transaction behaviors, application developers shouldn’t be obsessed about Apple.

His main point is that Apple only has a 7% share of application users. "That means that 93% of the European applications user market is shared between other players - Nokia has 37%, for example," Allistair Hill says. "Android is gathering momentum at an incredible pace. Application developers must think broader than just Apple."

We have to remember that despite Apple has pioneered the application store model, mobile operators are well positioned to provide big returns to application since the launch earlier this week in Barcelona (where the 3GSM took place) of the WAC (Wholesale Applications Community). "The Wholesale Applications Community is seeking to address the device fragmentation issues which have been hindering the development of apps for mass market devices," Hill adds. "If the initiative is successful it will bring great content out of the high end and into mid range devices, bringing far greater returns for developers."

The analyst gives us as well some interesting stats about the revenue opportunity for application developers, which can be very good if the volumes are high enough. For example in the UK, you pay in average £1.64 for an iPhone application ($2,54), and £1.14 go to the developer ($1,76). "So success as an applications developer depends on volume sales - thousands rather than hundreds of downloads," Allistair Hills observes. "Many iPhone developers are hitting these numbers today, despite a relatively small addressable market: 3% of EU and 4% of US mobile owners have an iPhone. The potential addressable market created by a Wholesale Applications Community framework could be billions, though achieving something on this scale will take time."

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