Tablets will generate more app revenue than smartphones within five years

Apps used on tablets like the iPad and various Android slates are expected to generate $8.8 billion in revenue in 2013, accounting for 35% of all app revenue this year, while smartphone apps generate $16.4 billion. According to market research firm ABI, the scales will finally tip by 2018, when tablet app revenue surpasses smartphones. ”The dynamic is quite straightforward,” ABI analyst Aapo Markkanen said. “The larger screen makes apps and content look and feel better, so there are more lucrative opportunities. One might think that the bigger installed base of smartphones would compensate for the disparity, but that notion fails to take into account the arrival of low-cost tablets, which hasn’t even started yet at its earnest. The smartphones paved the way for them, but in the end we believe that it’s the tablets that will prove the more transformative device segment of the two.” ABI estimates that tablet and smartphone apps will generate a combined $92 billion in revenue in 2018.

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