Asia Pacific smartphone users to spend almost $1 billion a year on apps by 2015

Research firm Ovum says downloads of mobile applications by smartphone users in the Asia Pacific region will top 1.2 million this year before rising to over five million by 2015.

The firm says spending on paid apps will increase from $104 million in 2010 to $958 million in 2015, with an estimated $207 million of that going to market leader Apple.

While Apple is clearly the dominant player in the market, Ovum analyst Adam Leach says the competition catching up – of the five million free and paid apps expected to be downloaded in 2015, just 597,150 are tipped to from the Apple App Store.

“The iPhone 4 faces much stiffer competition than its predecessors. The rise of Google Android over the last two years has been phenomenal and is allowing manufacturers to create appealing alternatives to the iPhone, critically at cheaper prices,” Leach says.

“These handsets are more than just iPhone clones. The risk to Apple is that these devices offer greater freedom with available content and may prove more appealing…than a device with Apple approved content only. This may ultimately be what puts the brakes on unlimited iPhone growth.”