Mobile applications have been around for years, but they are still managing to gain momentum at the moment as smartphone ownership grows around the globe.

A new report from App Annie estimates that a total of 258.2 billion bite-sized programs will be downloaded to portable device this year, which represents a 45 per cent uptick in activity compared with 2017.

Furthermore, the average amount that users will be willing to spend through apps will rise to $25.65 (£18.90). This accounts for in-app purchases as well as those accessing safe shopping online from dedicated retail apps.

By 2022 the total number of smartphones in use around the world will reach 6.1 billion. Last year around 3.9 billion people had access to a mobile of this technical complexity, which indicates just how much further the market can expand going forwards.

Analysts expect that while the majority of the growth in mobile ownership will come from developing nations, the mature markets for safe shopping online and app use in the UK, Europe and North America will be responsible for much of the revenue for the foreseeable future.

Even in Britain where smartphone ownership is almost a ubiquitous trend and mobile shopping is an established past-time, insiders predict that there will still be a healthy boost to sales over the next half-decade.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the people who are coming to the smartphone market late will be spending less and using fewer apps than their early adopting counterparts. But this will still mean that tens of billions of pounds worth of sales are being generated within apps each year.

A lot of the app-based revenues have been sourced from interactive entertainment, such as games and media streaming services. But with so many popular retail apps in use, m-commerce is making a hefty contribution of its own.