The future mobile app market will be dictated by tablet users.

This is interesting, so far everyone seems to be focused on how smartphones will change the future of mobile apps, well now the guys at research2guidance have found out that the future of mobile apps will actually be dictated by tablets and not smartphones.

According to a press release from research2guidance ” the global installed base of app consumers increased by 104% between 2010 and 2011.” Even though the  installed base of smartphones increased by nearly 274 million, tablets were the fastest growing segment. The number of new tablet app consumers increased by 58 million. As a result, tablet owners now constitute 8.6% of the installed app consumer base.

According to several sources Q2 projections for tablet shipments in 2012, estimates that the installed base of tablet users is set to increase more than 150% by 2013.  In other words since more and more customers own tablets and therefore become a larger part of the app downloading segment, then their wants and needs will have an increasing influence on the app market. According to the guys at research2guidance  “tablet users exhibit different behaviour towards app downloading/usage and mobile browsing than smartphone users”, therefore tablet user growth is likely to have a marked effect on consumption in these areas.

What do you think – how will the growth in the installed base of tablet users impact the mobile apps market? Which app categories do you think will be most impacted?