Few People Actually Pay for Apps

Apps have captured the popular imagination and made smartphone makers' mouths water with the thought of a new revenue source. But a new survey from Nielsen and the Pew Research Center casts doubt on the size of the current market:

• Only 13% of adults have ever paid for an app, and it's usually an inexpensive one.
• Only 35% of adult cell phone users have apps (including pre-loaded ones) and only 24% use them.
• More than half have deleted apps, usually within 2 weeks.

The news should actually be welcome to developers, reasons Austin Carr at Fast Company. "If the app market is such a huge success with so few users, and already generating billions of dollars in revenue, how big will it become when it apps are as ubiquitous among adults as texting and taking pictures?" (More Nielsen stories.)