Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkens just released her “Top Mobile Internet Trends”. Overall interesting read. What immediately struck me were slides 4 and 5 showing the exceptional take-off for the iPad and the Apple App-Store. The interesting part is that iPad grew much faster than iPod and iPhone and the App-Store grew faster and bigger than iTunes. In both cases the key to this is in my view that those had no real competition at the time of launch.
The iPad created the market for tablet devices without any really competitor. At the time of launch the iPod had several MP3 player and the iPhone several smartphones as serious contenders for the market. Although finally they also re-defined their category the start was not as easy for them.
Similar is true for the App-Store. There have been already several MP3-download sites pior to the launch of iTunes, whereas for mobile phone application download sites they have not been any real competitors, despite some attempts by mobile operators and device vendors.