Mobile App Sales to Rise 77% in 2011: The Goldrush Begins…

According to research firm IHS iSuppli, mobile app sales — including subscription apps, one-time fee apps, and upsales within apps — will rise this

According to research firm IHS iSuppli, mobile app sales — including subscription apps, one-time fee apps, and upsales within apps — will rise this year to $3.8 billion.I’d be inclined to trust this number, especially as Apple and Google’s Android just launched subscription app offerings this year. Recurring revenues are easier to count on growing steadily, for now, than one-time download sales.For example, Popular Science already sells subscriptions on both platforms and is claiming nearly a quarter of a million dollars in revenues from them. (They’ll be one of the publishers speaking at Subscription Site Insider’s exclusive webinar on how to market and price subscription apps later this month. Here’s a link for an on-demand video of it if you’re interested.)Although selling subscriptions via Apple, Google, et al has its downside — you can’t control the marketing as much as if you were selling directly and the platform takes a whopping 30% of revenues as their cut — at least the cash can be quick. Popular Science sold 8,000 Apple iPad subscriptions in their first three weeks. And, Apple pays publishers weekly.If you don’t have a famous name brand, another way of quickly monetizing the app market is to launch your own app company and pray for an M&A. Yahoo bought app IntoNow just a few weeks after it launched. MergerNetwork has been running a listing for another app firm, which launched in November and now claims $65k in monthly “profits” (with new publishers one is never sure if what they call profits are actually just gross revenues minus Apple’s cut.) Apparently this unnamed SF firm would happily sell their 11 paid apps for $700k if you’re interested.Kind of reminds me of the AdSense goldrush of a few years ago when thousands of web developers were shoveling up hundreds of thousands of “content” sites with Google ads with no ambition beyond flipping them within weeks to would-be Internet entrepreneurs who wanted the proverbial easy income with little work lifestyle.

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