Apple King of the App Store, But Losing Ground Rapidly

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The figures are downright shocking, but they all draw the same conclusions: one, Apple used to be the undisputed lord and master of the universe in terms of apps but lost a huge chunk of business in just a year. And two, Blackberry isn’t dead. For anyone who thought it was, prepare to be stunned.

The numbers break down like you see in the chart above–Apple lost just over ten percent of its market share whilst competing platforms saw impressive gains. In fact, the gains were split almost evenly between Android Market, the Nokia Ovi Store and Blackberry’s App World. In fact, Blackberry’s App World is the second largest chunk of the app market behind Apple’s App Store.

On a certain level, though, this is all academic. Apple still holds fully 80 percent of the entire app market, which still pretty much cements their position as the top slot. The nearest competitor, Blackberry’s App World, is the equivalent of less than ten percent of Apple’s entire market. But still, it’s impossible to deny that everybody else made big gains while Apple was the only one of the top four to lose. And as Windows Phone 7 starts showing up and taking its bite, it’s not hard to wonder who’s going to take the losses to see Windows Phone 7 get its share. Will Apple lose further ground? Or will the losses be better spread out among the other brands, especially given the coalition arrangement that Nokia and Microsoft (or as the various tech wonks call it, Microkia) are being seen to enjoy.

This is certainly a point worth watching, as it’s defining a substantial portion of a major new economy. How will it all boil down? That remains to be seen, but you know we’re going to be watching this and seeing where the gains go and from whose market share those gains come from.