Less than one per cent of consumer mobile apps will be considered a financial success by their developers by 2018, according to latest research by Gartner. The company said its analysis shows that most mobile applications are not generating profits and that many mobile apps are not designed to generate revenue, but rather are used to build brand recognition and product awareness or are just for fun. Application designers who do not recognise this may find profits elusive, the research and consultancy company added. Gartner vice president Ken Dulaney described the mobile application market as "hyperactive" with more than 200 vendors developing mobile application development platforms and millions of developers using these products and open-source tools to build mobile applications. In addition, the bounty of good, free mobile apps has set high expectations for what should be paid for. "There are so many applications that are free and that will never directly generate revenue. Gartner is forecasting that, by 2017, 94.5 per cent of downloads will be for free apps," said Dulaney. Report