There is no doubt that smartphones and tablets will break all records when it comes to the downloading of apps. Surveys by Zokeim, a mobile search firm, indicate the same. Apps are definitely popular and are many times more in use than voice or browsing. While Gartner reports 33 percent Android usage, 31 percent Symbian usage, 16 percent Apple iOS, 14 percent RIM, 3 percent Windows and 3 percent other, surveys in India show differently. 29 percent claim to be using Symbian, 13 percent claim to be using Windows, 7 percent use BlackBerry, 6 percent Android, and 3 percent use Apple iOS.

However, even in India, 47 percent users download apps for their smartphones as per the LD Mobile Usage Survey of 2010, as against 52 percent who probably don’t download apps on their mobile phones. India and China collectively added 300 million mobile subscriptions in 2010.

Interestingly, International Telecommunication Union, Strategy Analytics, IDC, and other international survey organizations, seem to think that mobile Internet will overtake the PC, that is, web access via laptops and smartphones will overtake desktop web in the next five years. Other surveyors and generally worldwide all of them confirm that Asia and China, principally will over the coming years be the dominating force in mobile web applications.

During this period, mobile advertising, mobile marketing and mobile app sales are expected to rule the roost as far as services are concerned. Worldwide be it Japan, or China, or Europe or the US or India and/or China, apps are going to be the biggest usage areas in mobiles.