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According to Nielsen, games continue to be the most popular app category, and according to Nielsen research, 93 percent of app downloaders — those who have downloaded an app within the past 30 days –  are willing to pay for the games they play. In contrast, only 76 percent of downloaders are willing to pay for news apps.

Among smartphone consumers who have played mobile games in the past 30 days, those with iPhones, Windows 7 phones or Android phones are the most likely to have downloaded the games they played, while those with Blackberry phones or featurephones tend to play pre-loaded games.  The average mobile gamer plays an average of 7.8 hours a month.  Those with iPhones tend to play around 14.7 hours each month while those with Android smartphones play around 9.3 hours per month.

The world’s leading smartphone makers are rapidly accelerating their adoption of mobile payment technologies that will enable their handsets and mobile operating systems to better compete in the not so distant future – a future, many believe, that will be dominated by mobile payments across the retail landscape.

Two sources close to Microsoft indicate that Microsoft is presently – and aggressively – working toward a version of its Windows Phone software that will deliver mobile payment functionality.

The development could be a powerful one for Microsoft, which currently boasts only 5.5% of the competitive mobile operating system market. The first devices sporting mobile-payment technology could debut as early as this year, the sources tell Bloomberg.

As it now stands, Microsoft controls 14 patents referencing NFC. That’s according to the U.S. Patent Office.

Microsoft is likely to get support in its mobile payments effort from Nokia Oyj, the handset maker that recently said it will use Windows Phone software on its devices. Nokia said it will make NFC a standard feature of its 2011 smartphones based on the Symbian operating system.

ABI Research estimates that NFC-enabled phones will double in 2012. Gartner, meanwhile, predicts that by 2014, 340 million global wireless users will use mobile payments.

Below is a summary of what we see as the top ten overarching mobile trends of 2010:

1. Phones Keep Getting ‘Smarter’: Smartphone adoption continues to increase across the U.S. and Europe, with most markets surpassing 25-30% market penetration for smartphones. The proliferation of new devices hitting the market in 2010 – including the iPhone 4, Blackberry Storm 2, and Motorola Droid X – has given consumers strong smartphone options across wireless carriers that is helping this segment of the market gain traction.
2. iPhone Dominates Device Sales: The top two devices sold in 2010 in both the U.S. and EU5 were the iPhone 3GS and iPhone4, respectively. The #3 device in the U.S. was the Blackberry Curve, while the #3 device in the EU5 was the Nokia 5800 – XpressMusic.
3. Android Storms Smartphone Market: 2010 saw Google’s Android platform grab hold in the mobile marketplace in a big way. In the U.S. alone, Android’s share of the smartphone market jumped from 5% to 29% in just one year, and it leapfrogged Apple to become the #2 smartphone platform after RIM. The number of different smartphones running Android certainly helped accelerate this trend, as did the desire for many consumers on Verizon to opt for a smartphone with a strong app economy.
4. The App Ecosystem Blossoms: iPhone paved the way for the app ecosystem to emerge as developers create new and interesting apps for consumers every day. While most early apps were developed primarily for the iPhone, we are now seeing vibrant app ecosystems for Android, Blackberry and others.
5. Email Shifts to the Mobile Phone: 2010 saw usage of PC-based email decline, particularly among teenagers, and it appears that much of that email activity is moving to people’s mobile devices. While Blackberry was once in a league of its own in terms of email functionality, many other devices have since caught up, and consumers are responding. Email now exists across media and mobile devices will continue to be a growing part of that trend.
6. Location is Everything: Location-based check-in services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places all entered the digital lexicon in 2010 and have begun to gain consumer adoption. Other GPS-enabled apps like Google Maps and Garmin have also proved to be among the most popular and widely downloaded.
7. Social Owns Mobile: Social media is one of the most prevalent and fastest-growing activities on the mobile phone. In the U.S. the number of mobile social media users grew 56% to lead all content categories, and in the UK Facebook accounts for 40% of all time spent on mobile sites.
8. Mobile Commerce Readies for Lift-off: Mobile commerce, or m-commerce, has yet to gain traction in a significant way, but as smartphone adoption accelerates, technology has begun to facilitate mobile transactions. The next phase in m-commerce will be the emergence of the “mobile wallet” with direct payments coming from the mobile device, with Starbucks leading the way among merchants in installing the technology for such payments.
9. iPad Redefines the Mobile Landscape: Apple’s blockbuster launch of the iPad in early 2010 set the stage for a completely new category of device to emerge, as several other tablets and e-readers hit the market by the end of the year. As a reasonably sophisticated computing device that is also mobile, the iPad has given new definition to the types of behaviors in which consumers will engage in the mobile environment. The iPad is also causing time-shifting in how and when consumers engage with content, with the iPad showing a high percentage of activity late at night as people wind down for the evening.
10. Mobile Advertising Market Takes Shape: As mobile media consumption increases, it was only a matter of time before the mobile advertising boom began to take shape. Apple got into the act with the introduction of the iAd, which has already attracted many of the top brand advertisers like AT&T, Citi and Disney. Expect to see more and better quality ad units alongside mobile media content in 2011.

You can see from this selection of highlights that 2010 was another outstanding year, and this year promises to shine even brighter. If you haven’t already downloaded the 2010 Mobile Year in Review, you can do so here. We hope you enjoy and that it gives you a few things to think about on your way to success in 2011…

Why this is important: Windows has a minimal amount of marketshare in the smartphone category in the U.S. Nokia’s Symbian OS platform suffers from the same problem. However, both have substantial installed bases worldwide and the partnership could actually create a 4th legitimate smartphone competitor next to RIM, iOS and Android.

Distimo’s latest November Report showed the top free apps for Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7 and iPhone.  Facebook appeared on all the lists.  Another favorite across platforms is Pandora Radio.

Top 10 Most Popular Free Android Market Apps

1. Pandora Radio.
2. Google Maps.
3. Advanced Task Killer.
4. Facebook for Android.
5. T-Mobile My Account.
6. The Weather Channel.
7. Barcode Scanner.
8. Google Sky Map.
9. Talking Tom Cat Free.
10. Kakao Talk.

Top 10 Most Popular Free BlackBerry App World Apps

1. BlackBerry Messenger.
2. Poynt.
3. Pandora.
4. crunchSMS.
5. Facebook.
6. FREE Sea Storm Animated Theme.
7. Twitter.
8. ScoreMobile for BlackBerry.
9. Windows Live Messenger.
10. PrivacyStar.

Top 10 Most Popular Free Windows Phone 7 Marketplace Apps

1. YouTube.
2. Xbox LIVE Extras.
3. Facebook.
4. Adobe Reader.
5. Netflix.
6. Shazam.
7. Twitter.
8. Unite.
9. The Weather Channel.
10. IMDb Movies, TV, & Celebrities.

Top 10 Most Popular Free App Store Apps (for iPhone)

1. Cut the Rope Lite.
2. 0.03 seconds.
3. Catapult Madness.
4. Glow Background IN ONE.
5. Rat on a Scotter XL.
6. Ringtone Maker.
7. Trainyard Express.
8. Tesla Toy.
9. The Moron Test: Section 1.
10. Facebook.

• Games are significantly more popular in Windows Phone 7 Marketplace than they are on WindowsMarketplace for Mobile (6.x).  This mirrors the way that Microsoft positions Windows Phone 7 as a more consumer-oriented platform.
• The price of applications in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace closely mirrors the prices in other application stores, as opposed to applications in the Windows Marketplace for Mobile (6.x), which are significantly more expensive.
• The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace launched on October 21, 2010, and has grown to 2,674
applications as of November 22, 2010.