Mobile 'apps' to be $58 billion market

Mobile applications downloaded from online stores will be a $58 billion worldwide business by 2014, as tablet computers such as Apple's iPad stoke the surging market, Gartner predicts.

The figure marks a huge increase on the $5.2 billion spent on mobile applications in 2010, technology consultancy Gartner said, predicting there will be 17.7 billion application downloads this year, more than double the 8.2 billion in 2010.

By the end of 2014, Gartner forecasted that over 185 billion applications will have been downloaded since 2008.

Mobile 'apps' to be $58 billion market