Apple’s iTunes App Store was long thought to be the dominant ecosystem as far as apps were concerned, with plenty of developers to choose to developer for iOS exclusively, or to develop apps for the iOS platform first. Well Google has since managed to catch up and according to reports, could even beat out Apple in terms of revenue generated. According to a report by Barron’s, they note that according to a Citigroup analyst, Mark May, it has been estimated that Google Play’s revenue will compound annual growth over the next four years, allowing it to grow from $1.3 billion in 2013, to a whopping $5.2 billion in 2017.
However this number is expected to be even bigger if one were to factor in in-app related ads, in which May thinks it will boost revenue to $3.2 billion in 2014, and come 2017 Google could be looking at $7.2 billion in revenue from Google Play alone. Those are some pretty impressive numbers, and with that being said, May has actually raised his price target from $1,025 to $1,190 and issued a Buy rating on Google’s stock. It’s hard to say where we might be in the next 3-4 years, but assuming this is the trend, Google Play could be Google’s new cash cow.