Brits to waste £747.3m on unused mobile phone apps in 2010

Aug. 11, 2010 - PRLog -- According to a study by http://www.MyVoucherCodes.co.uk of 1,476 British mobile phone owners, four fifths, 79% say they are ‘highly unlikely’ to use applications they have paid to download more than once.

The survey, commissioned by the UK’s leading discount voucher code website, http://www.MyVoucherCodes.co.uk, has found that just 9% of smartphone users haven’t paid to download an ‘app’ or game.

The application industry, set to be worth £4.3bn throughout 2010 if market research firm Gartner’s figures are correct[1], is dominated by Apple, a company that enjoys more than 90% of the market share. More than 3bn applications were downloaded in 2009, and an estimated 4.5bn will be downloaded throughout 2010.

There are approximately 50m smartphone users globally, 11m of which are in the UK. Given that four fifths of smartphone owners say that they are highly unlikely to use applications or games they download, the research therefore indicates that £747.3m will be spent on applications that are not used beyond first download in 2010*.

The study by http://www.MyVoucherCodes.co.uk found that 27% of people said they had chosen their particular smartphone for the range of mobile applications they knew was available on that handset.

According to the results found by http://www.MyVoucherCodes.co.uk a fifth, 19%, of respondents said they downloaded at least one application every week.
The average cost of an application through Apple’s Appstore is £1.85, according to aggregated figures[2].

Games also proved to be a novelty for smartphone users, with 62% admitting that they had games on their mobile phone that they had not played since downloading. The average game via Apple’s Appstore costs £0.81
Mark Pearson, managing director at http://www.MyVoucherCodes.co.uk had the following to say,

“Mobile applications have become the mobile equivalent of impulse buys. Their relatively low cost means that despite the fact that there are millions to choose from; only a certain percentage will ever be used beyond the initial download, as the novelty soon wears off.

“Given that I’m the founder of a discount website aimed at helping users save money, you’d expect which side of the fence I’d sit on, especially when it comes to wasted cash. When you pay to download an app, it’s money you’ll never see, and therefore money you’ll never miss.”

He continued,

“As cool as having an application that turns your handset into a light sabre is, think about whether you’re going to be using it beyond that initial download – if you’re not, it’s probably money that hasn’t been particularly well spent.”

ENDS

For further information please contact Rich Leigh, 10 Yetis Public Relations Agency on 01452 348 211 or rich@10yetis.co.uk

Editors notes

Mark Pearson, MD of MyVoucherCodes is a regular media contributor regarding online shopping and the credit crunch. At 29, his personal worth is more than £30 million. Mark was previously a trainee chef working for Gordon Ramsay at Claridges, London.

http://www.MyVoucherCodes.co.uk has had sales exceeding £481m in the last year

Consumer savings on online shopping via MyVoucherCodes.co.uk up from £28m in 2008 to £52m in 2009.

MyVoucherCodes is the UKs most popular discount site.