There is no denying that one of the main drivers behind the growth of smartphone is the glut of new software available for the devices. The Apple App Store started the fascination with applications for smartphones and today just about every mobile company out there has its own app store.

Research firm Frost & Sullivan has released a report that estimates by 2014 all application stores combines will have reached 6.67 billion total downloads. That is certainly not hard to imagine considering how many apps are downloaded from Apple alone.

The research firm says that its predictions are based on prepaid and postpaid users. The estimates also cover SMS and MMS, mobile Internet, iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Palm, and Symbian platforms. One main driver of adoption will be the large number of free or cheap apps available on various platforms.

[via Frost & Sullivan]