Globally the concept of MVAS offered over application stores popularly known as App Stores is rapidly gaining traction with even service providers jumping to the fray to capture a share of the pie. Admob’s mobile metrics published periodically provides rich insight into this upcoming revenue stream.

As per the findings and analysis of the metrics, globally it is observed that mobile subscribers are predominantly inclined to have free access to applications. Of the average 8.8 applications downloaded per month by an iPhone user, 7.0 applications are those which are free in nature. The trends for users of Android-based phones are similar with 7.6 of the total 8.7 applications downloaded on an average per user being free in nature.

The research says that users across all platforms are highly engaged with apps, groups of users have different download habits. 59% of users across platforms download less than 6 apps per month. 13% of users across all platforms said they downloaded "More than 20" free apps every month. The majority of these super-users come from the iPod touch which has the most engaged users.

For users who regularly download paid apps, the distribution of the number of paid apps downloaded each month is similar across platforms. 66% of users who say they download at least 1 paid app per month download between 1-3 apps, while 22% download 4-6 apps. There was a small number of super-users that download a large number of paid apps every month.

Meanwhile the Admob metrics for January 2010 show that contribution from the Indian market is marginally down by 0.4% at 777 million requests. The Indian market however continues to enjoy the number 2 position for the company in terms of ad request contribution.

In India, Nokia dominates the mobile web market with highest requests coming from Nokia-made handsets. But while in earlier months it used to Nokia alone in the top handsets list, models of Samsung and Sony Ericsson have now gained presence in the list.