Dubai Smartphone apps have quickly transformed from a niche market to a mainstream force that is changing the way consumers receive information, media and entertainment.
The current generation demands a medley of software capabilities such as games apps, business oriented applications, communication and social networking apps, and entertainment apps, experts at the Mobile show told Gulf News.
"As mobile applications begin to permeate Middle East daily life in terms of both social and business use, it will be consumer demand that drives the market growth," Mohammad Essawi, general manager of Asgatech Lower Gulf, said.
He added: "Since BlackBerry App World became available in the region in May 2011, we have developed and launched over 35 apps for both the BlackBerry PlayBook and BlackBerry smartphones.
"Our reach has been global, with many of our applications being downloaded from the rest of the world, mainly our Islamic apps such as Quran Mojawed and Sahih Muslim.
"In 2011 alone, we recorded over 600,000 app downloads, and by February this year we reached over one million," he said.
The majority of the usage of mobile apps in the Arab world pertains to entertainment such as songs, social news, Islamic lectures, prayer times and Hijri calendar. The global mobile app market is expected to cross $66 billion (Dh242.57 billion) in four years, more than double the $31 billion in 2011, according to Juniper Research's report.
A true barometer of the success of apps, Essawi said is the rate of smartphone penetration.
According to Hashem H. Sharrab, director of customer support systems Mobily of Saudi Arabia, app downloads have become an international trend driven by the fact that more people globally are increasingly familiar with smartphone functionality.
Microsoft has around 70,000 apps in its marketplace compared to 400,000 apps in the Google Play or Apple's 600,000 in the App Store. BlackBerry has around 11,000 apps in Arabic while Nokia has around 2,500 locally developed apps and Samsung has around 300 Arabic apps on the Bada platform.
There's no doubt that for any platform to be successful today it needs to offer its users a good selection of apps.
The platform comes first, Sharrab said, and the ‘apps later' approach doesn't work. And in order to be able to do this, that platform needs a good base of developers to imagine and then build these apps.
Sandeep Saihgal, managing director of RIM Middle East, said they have around 15 local developers under the BlackBerry Alliance Programme and app development centres in Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
Strategy Analytics reports that by the end of 2012, paid downloads will reach around $2 billion with the Android Market overtaking Apple's App Store for the volume of downloads (but not the revenues) by the end of that year too.
"Globally, the Nokia Store offers over 90,000 applications and currently there are over 2,500 locally developed Nokia applications," Praveen Prabhakaran, head of Ecosystem Development for Nokia Middle East, said.
