The Apps Stores are as irrelevant to mobile telecoms as Segway is to cars

"Yankee Group measured in 2009 that the total value of all apps sold in all Apps Stores, not just the Apple iPhone App Store was worth 343 million dollars. I do not mean to belittle some number that is hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide, and yes, its a very attractive opportuntiy for any application developer. "

"But applications are a small part of the software and services income of the computer industry. And software is only a part of the global computer industry. And the global computer industry is far smaller than the total telecoms industry. Now you get the picture? That 343 million total value of all apps store sales globally in 2009, compares to 5 BILLION dollars of annual income for one category of downloaded content of paid mobile service worldwide - get this - the ringing tone (says Juniper Research). I do not mean full track downloads to phones, not 'real tones' type of better quality ringing tones and am not talking about 'ringback tones' - each of which is also worth over a billlion dollars for mobile content by the way. No, basic ringing tones are worth 5 Billion dollars all by themselves. "

Educate yourselves: http://communities-dominate.blogs.co...s-to-cars.html

Now you understand why the Ovi Store is filled with "useless" ringtones and "silly" wallpapers?

Edit: this quote is golden:

"
Just one '*****ic' type of ultra-simplistic cellphone content type, the basic 'ploink-ploink' style ringing tone, that is downloaded roughly speaking by about ten percent of global cellphone owners, earns 14 times more than ALL app stores worldwide, not just Apple's. (and yes, you read it right, basic dumb ringing tones sell more than 2.5X more than all iTunes music sales worldwide annually). All of ringing tones are 'downloaded' content to phones. You don't need a smartphone for ringing tones (oh, silly iPhone, early iPhones didin't even accept ringing tones). And yeah, while most Apple App Store downloads are free, all ringing tones are paid content. Which is the better more economically viable story? The magnitude in just one category is so enormous as setting up a zoo and then celebrating the goat and ignoring the elephant at the zoo."