Less than 0.01 percent of consumer mobile apps will be considered a financial success by their developers between now and 2018, according to new research.
The study by Gartner found that around 90 percent of paid apps get less than 500 downloads and generate less than €915 in revenues each day.
As a result, free apps will account for 94.5 percent of downloads by 2017.
Consumers are increasingly turning to recommendation engines, friends, social networking or advertising to discover mobile apps rather than sorting through the thousands of mobile apps available, the research firm said.
“This is only going to get worse in the future when there will be even greater competition, especially in successful markets,"commented Ken Dulaney, Vice President and Analyst at Gartner.
Developers receive 70 percent of sales revenue when they publish an app on either Apple’s App Store or Google Play.
Microsoft pays the same for Windows Store; however after an app generates €18,000, Microsoft drops its fee on subsequent revenue to 20 percent.
“The vast number of mobile apps may imply that mobile is a new revenue stream that will bring riches to many," said Dulaney.
“Many mobile apps are not designed to generate revenue, but rather are used to build brand recognition and product awareness or are just for fun. Application designers who do not recognise this may find profits elusive."
The study described the apps marketplace as “hyperactive” with more than 200 vendors developing mobile app development platforms and millions of developers using these products and open-source tools to build mobile apps.
