Top revenue generating mobile application

It was more than a little surprised to discover from Telephia’s recent “Mobile Application Report” that Zingy’s MapQuest Mobile is not only the biggest revenue-generating app on handsets, but that it wins in a walk.

Telephia, which uses a sample of billing records and revenues as a metric of application success, found MapQuest Mobile accounts for a staggering 21.9 percent of all revenue generated from mobile applications. Say what? All due respect to Zingy and its good job on this map-and-directions widget, but this app is not that great (really), and it certainly isn’t as strong as Verizon's SuperPages 2.0 (5.3 percent of revenue) or eBay Mobile (4.3 percent)

Top 10 Downloadable Mobile Applications By Total Revenue Share (U.S.)

Application	Publisher	Revenue Share
MapQuest Mobile	Zingy	21.9%
The Weather Channel	Weather Channel	5.7%
Verizon SuperPages 2.0	Verizon Directories	5.3%
Music Choice	Music Choice	5.0%
Sirius Music	Sirius Satellite Radio	4.8%
Accuweather.com Premium	AccuWeather	4.4%
eBay	Bonfire Media LLC	4.3%
Backup Assistant	FusionOne	2.8%
America's Best Mobile Pix	FunMail	2.6%
Yahoo! Photos	Yahoo!	2.6%
ESPN Bottomline Pro	ESPN	2.1%

Source: Telephia Mobile Applications Report (1Q06)

The map/directions content category has a natural advantage in this metric because it’s responsible for nearly 40 percent of all recurring revenue from applications. This is the category people tend to keep and pay for month to month, as opposed to many entertainment-oriented apps responsible for only 12 percent of recurring revenues and almost 30 percent of first-time buyer revenues.

                                         Top Downloadable Mobile Applications
                                         By Repeat Purchase Revenue (U.S.)

Category Share	Repeat Purchase Revenue Share	First-Time Purchase
Maps/Directions	39.5%	16.8%
Weather	18.9%	8.7%
Entertainment	12.0%	29.9%
Sports	8.9%	3.9%
Personal Organization/Tools	7.4%	4.3%

                                           Source: Telephia

 MapQuest is a natural beneficiary of two strong mobile forces: “First, the fundamental need – directions and maps – just fits into mobile really well. Second, MapQuest has a well-known and reliable brand on the regular Internet, which has a spillover effect in making it the go-to place for many on the mobile Web as well.”