Smartphone users will waste £750m this year

Smartphone users in Britain will waste an estimated 747.3 million on mobile phone apps this year.

In a study of 1,476 smartphone owners, the MyVoucherCodes website found eight out of 10 users said they would be "highly unlikely" to use an application more than once.

When it came to games, 62 per cent admitted they had some left unplayed since they downloaded them.

"Mobile applications have become the mobile equivalent of impulse buys," said Mark Pearson, managing director of MyVoucherCodes.

Part of the reason for this is that apps cost a relatively small amount, with games averaging 0.81 each and apps around 1.85, Pearson claimed.

Despite this, the report showed that a thrifty nine per cent of users only go for free applications.

Gartner has predicted the apps industry will prove to be worth $6 billion (4 billion) by the end of 2010.

Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner, said: "Games remain the number one application; and mobile shopping, social networking, utilities and productivity tools continue to grow and attract increasing amounts of money."

As for novelty programs, many of these are charged for even though they are limited to a single function.

"As cool as having an application that turns your handset into a light sabre is, think about whether you're going to be using it beyond that initial download if you're not, it's probably money that hasn't been particularly well spent," Pearson added.