Mobile Applications Creating Jobs for 'App Economy'

The rise of smartphones and tablets has prompted a rapid increase in mobile applications, but consumers aren't the only ones benefiting from the development of games, media apps and productivity tools.

According to a recent study conducted by Michael Mandel of South Mountain Economics, there are currently approximately 466,000 jobs in the "App Economy," up from zero in 2007. The App Economy includes jobs at specialized application development firms as well as mobile software experts working for large companies like Amazon and Facebook.

"The incredibly rapid rise of smartphones, tablets, and social media, and the applications - 'apps' -  that run on them, is perhaps the biggest economic and technological phenomenon today. Almost a million apps have been created for the iPhone, iPad and Android alone, greatly augmenting the usefulness of mobile devices," Mandel said in the report. "On an economic level, each app represents jobs."

The study revealed 23.8 percent of all App Economy jobs are located in California, while New York, Washington and Texas each account for between 5 and 7 percent of the mobile app employment market.

According to a recent ABI Research report, the number of enterprise mobile application users will surpass 830 million by 2016.