With over 27 millions of smartphones sold, the Italian mobile market registered an increase in revenues from applications, based on the findings of the Mobile Internet, Content and Apps Observatory of Milan’s Politecnico University.

Almost 2 billion smartphones and over 350 million tablets are currently being used worldwide.

Italy makes an important contribution to this impressive figure with over 27 million mobile users. It's evident that mobile market is starting to take on significant proportions: from simple browsing to the possibility of purchasing apps or content, numerous fields have been able to double their revenues within a few months.

Users of mobile devices are now equal to 3/4 of Internet users, leading mobile revenues to triple in just three years. If online browsing in complete mobility is sharply rising, with a growth of 53% just in 2012, the application market registered an increase of 20% over the course of the previous year, with a value of over 600 million euros (623 million to be exact).

The latest survey made by the Observatory shows an incredible boost of 87% in profits from Apps in 2012, and now the goal is to double it for 2013. The purchase of paid apps instead marks an increase of 76% and reaches 118 million euros. Games, always at the top, represent 60% of revenues, followed by social networks, utilities, maps and educational content.

The boom in revenues generated by Apps matches the exponential growth in revenues generated by mobile sites, + 27%.

"The Internet connectivity market from cellular network has tripled its revenues in three years" Andrea Rangone, the Scientific Director of the Observatory, said. "More and more Italians use their mobile phones to use and buy contents and digital entertainment (games, news, music, videos, social networks, etc..), through both mobile sites and apps. This market is offering great business opportunities to more developers and startups."

From the simple online browsing to the most advanced interaction in the app, Mobile Economy is making giant steps semester after semester, with results that are more and more surprising. And the next target is already in sight: overtaking traditional PCs sales in favor of smartphones' sales worldwide by 2013