There will be more than a billion smartphones and tablets sold in 2013. It’s an app world and we’ve entered an App Revolution Stock Bubble, as I long ago said it would become (see How to invest in the coming app bubble Sept. 29, 2010 for example).
You’ve either been on the app train or you’ve been left behind — but it’s not over yet. Nielsen recently reported that the average iPhone user has more than 40 apps on her device. I’ve seen several reports say that the average iPad user has more than 60 apps on his device. The average Android user has slightly fewer apps on each respective form factor and Windows and Blackberry users have even fewer than that. People are putting more apps on each smartphone and tablet every day though, and let’s take an average of 40 apps per smartphone and 60 apps per tablet.
That means there will be more than 50 billion apps put on new smartphones and tablets sold just this year. Apps have become, as I repeatedly predicted back from 2007-2011, the single largest marketplace in the history of the planet (see More mind-blowing App Revolution predictions Feb. 15, 2011 for example).
The value of just the publicly-traded app-centric companies that have come public and that I have repeatedly featured since the advent of what I predicted would become a “App Revolution Stock Bubble” is now more than $158 billion.
GRPN – $8BB
YELP – $4BB
LNKD – $26BB
FB – $110BB
ZNGA – $3BB
P – $4BB
Z – $3BB
Including still-private app-centric companies like Twitter, there’s another several hundred billion dollars of App Revolution valuation that’s been created in the last five years.
Apps have become a part of pretty much all of our lives already. I recently became addicted to Scutify.com‘s Scutify app and was so impressed that I reached out to the company and have come to terms with its owners on acquiring the company now. Check it out and I think you’ll see why. I’ve always said that I put my money (and my time and my energy) where my mouth is. I’ve been fully invested in various ways in the App Revolution for a long time now and here’s how I expect it to play out.
Twitter’s recent IPO filing means we are definitely getting much closer to the top of the App Stock Bubble than we are to the bottom. In fact, I would expect that we’ll see the top of the App Revolution Stock Bubble just a few months after the Twitter IPO. And then pretty much all of these App Stocks are going to crash. And if they crash anything like the old Dot-com Stock Bubble did back at its top, it’ll be at least two years of brutal consolidation in the industry. Then the survivors, much like Amazon and Priceline and Netflix did after they crashed in the Great Dot-com Crash from 2000-2002, will come back and prosper and be more valuable than ever.
I plan on getting out of most of my publicly-traded App Revolution Stock Bubble sometime after Twitter comes public. But I plan on continuing to build my businesses and position my money, time and energy to profit from a long-term secularly growing marketplace that is already right here right now the single largest marketplace in the history of the planet — Apps.
And speaking of Blackberry’s failure to position itself for the App Revolution…I also positioned us for that repeatedly over its collapse from $100 to $8. I’m selling half my BBRY puts for huge profits and letting the rest just ride for now.