September 11th, 2012
There will be nearly 46 billion mobile app downloads made this year, nearly double the 25 billion downloads in 2011. Among those downloads, free will continue to reign supreme: 89% of those downloads worldwide will cost nothing. That is also appearing to have a knock-on effect on apps that are sold for a price: 90% of paid apps will cost less than $3.
Short term projections like this one are OK with us (you know of our deep distrust of eMarketers ever up-trending two-tone forecasts).  And this one includes pretty amazing numbers according to Gartner. (Free Apps Account For 89% Of All Downloads; Most Of The Rest Under $3; iOS Store Biggest Of Them All)

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