With the submission process for launch apps on iPad hitting its stride as we speak, the suggestion the overall tablet app market will grow to $8 billion annually by 2015 doesn't seem too wild a prediction.

That's the figure suggested by GigaOm blogger Michael Wolf.

In his report on the tablet app market, he states that iPad will do for tablet apps what iPhone did for mobile apps.

Expanding the app

"With a significant number of the 150,000 apps in Apple's App Store set to be available on the iPad from day one, the market for paid tablet apps alone is expected to top $8 billion within just five years," Wolf says.

That represents a huge margin of growth from the $183 million he believes the tablet app market will be worth in 2010.

Getting their moneys worth

Wolf also predicts that paid apps will take a greater portion of the cake than they do on mobile phones, with downloads of both paid and free apps growing for 272 million in 2010 to 12 billion by 2015.

"When you consider that other forms of app monetisation will include advertising and free apps tied to content subscriptions or content downloads, the web tablet app economy will actually be much bigger," he adds.

But while he expects iPad to kick start the drive, the market won't be all Apple's, Wolf stating he believes both Google and Microsoft will "offer strong alternatives" within his report's five year period.

"That said, I forecast Apple and the iPad to be the web tablet market share leader throughout the forecast period. By 2015, I expect the web tablet market to be a 43-million-unit-per-year market."





[source: GigaOm]