Analysts from ABI Research predict that in 2012 the number of downloads of mobile applications for smartphones worldwide will reach 36 billion, which is 6% higher than last year. However, according to their calculations, there will be a gradual decrease in the total number of downloads in the coming years.

According to analysts of consulting and research firm Gartner, consumer spending on mobile apps and content will increase to $61 billion by 2016.

One of the company’s executives spoke about the future of the gaming industry, meta-games, and why iOS is still better than Facebook.

Niko Partners, a firm researching Asian IT markets, predicts that by the end of this year the number of Chinese mobile gamers will reach 192 million, thereby exceeding the expected figure for the audience of players on personal computers of the Celestial Empire – 180 million.

Recently, information has been spreading more and more actively in the online media that Apple is preparing to release a budget tablet, which is still called the iPad Mini. And, indeed, such a step looks quite justified. After all, competitors have already begun to explore this niche. Let’s recall at least the Kindle Fire and the recently announced Google Nexus 7.

At the Google I/O conference currently taking place in San Francisco, the search giant officially announced its own tablet, which is produced by the Korean company Asus.

On June 27, Google I/O starts, where the announcement of the tablet from the search company should take place, but, apparently, someone could not resist and leaked almost all the information about the expected novelty a couple of hours ago.

Zynga shares have fallen almost 12% in just one day. The reason for the fall was a study Cowen & Co, according to which it became known that in just one month, Zynga lost 5 million of its users who traded Facebook games for mobile entertainment.

In the near future, the Google corporation platform may not only give way to the conditional palm of iOS, but also lose the mobile device market. 

Revenue from content on mobile devices is growing, but there is still little investment in advertising in this segment. ARPU and eCPM in mobile games also lag behind the indicators of desktop systems. 

The share of Android in the American smartphone market has grown to 49% in the first quarter of 2012, according to experts of the advertising company Millennial Media. So Google’s operating system continues to be the “king of the mountain”; also in the US, 15 of the top 20 mobile devices run on Android 

Analysts are lowering their forecasts regarding the bright future of the Windows Phone mobile platform. So far, however, it is not very significant.

Microsoft and Intel are going to seriously shrink Apple’s share in the tablet market by releasing more than 30 devices on the “eight” to the shelves by the end of the year. 

Website Editor pocketgamer.biz Following the results of the conference, GDC identified 21 trends in the modern mobile industry. Here is the third and final part of this article.

One of the former directors of EA said that with an increase in budgets, the mobile games industry will forget about clones. 

According to American analysts from Strategy Analytics and RBC Capital Market, mobile platforms have been on the market for no more than ten years. Based on this theory, the researchers assumed that iOS and Android will cease to exist in five to six years. 

There is a version that the next iPad will be shown at the annual iWorld festival on January 26, 2012.

With the introduction of Android 4.0 and Windows 8 on the market, tablets will become the dominant devices in the market of devices with touch screens.

In this issue: iOS apps bring 90% of profits, Europe is the leader in the number of Android apps downloaded per person, Apple has started accepting Chinese yuan in the App Store.