Today, November 8, is the day that handsets for Windows Phone 7  are due to go on sale in US. It already seems likely that this platform will quickly account for a substantial share of the apps industry.

As far as developers are concerned the main findings of the State of the Apps Industry Report, published by Millennial Media in collaboration with Digiday and Stifel Nicolaus is that significant growth is anticipated in applications revenue in 2011 and that there will be a shift in the platforms being developed for.

Thirty-one percent of respondents expected apps revenues to more than double in the coming year and almost half see then increasing by 50% or more; only 10% expect revenues to remain flat.

Comparing the platforms that app developers are currently developing for and those they intend to be working on in the next twelve months there is a distinct shift away from the iPhone, which drops its share from 31% to 8% and into Windows Phone 7, which is expected to have a 20% slice whereas Windows Mobile currently only has 6%. The Android platform is poised to move from its current number 2 slot, with 23% to the most dominant platform at 29%, a finding that concurs with IProgrammer's own poll conducted at around the same time.

Although the iPhone's share of support is expected to drop that for the iPad is almost maintained at 20%. Blackberry support remains constant at 12%.

Surprisingly there appears to be a proposed increase in development for the Symbian platform from 3% to 6% and taking it out off the bottom rank, a position that will be occupied Palm which slumps from 5% to 4%.

Further reading:

Mobile Platforms of the World

Android declared favorite mobile platform

Introduction to Android 2 application development

Getting started with Windows Phone 7