Applications for mobile phones are a huge business. Apple has had over a billion apps downloaded from its App Store in the year since it launched. Most other major smartphone makers have also launched their own app stores to try to follow Apple’s success.

Juniper Research claims that by 2014 there will have been about 20 billion mobile app downloads. This will grow based on the increasing design and deployment of apps aimed at mass market handsets. The number of app downloads will only increase as more handsets are capable of running apps.

Juniper Research also awarded its first Gold Award for Mobile Apps. The award went to acrossair for the slick augmented reality app called Nearest Tube. The app was developed for the iPhone 3GS and is only available in Europe at this time.

[via Juniper research]