App Store Boom: BlackBerry, Android, Microsoft and Apple

There is no denying how popular the whole mobile handset market has become, more so since the launch of app stores. This allows our handset to become much more than they when we first removed them out of its box. Consultant In-Stat has just released a forecast, and it makes for an interesting read.

Business Weekly has said that the forecast states that the number of potential mobile app store users could quadruple over the next five years. It is also thought that over 100 million handsets will be shipped in that time as well. Most of these will be tied to application markets such as Apple’s App Store.

Apple is not the only market place where you are able to download apps from, but it is a $1 billion business, making it top for mobile application sales. There are other market places, for a number of other handset apart from the Apple (AAPL) iPhone, such as Windows Mobile-based devices (MSFT), but users do not download application nowhere near as much.

Other app stores include RIMS BlackBerry App World (RIMM) and the Android Market (GOOG), but they have to pay catch up to Apples App store.