Analytics firm Flurry released new data today indicating a growing market of independent applications. According to the company, the middle class app market experienced a 357% increase in growth in the last 18 months. This niche market, as the data showed, has a global audience of more than 20 million active users monthly. Moreover, a 121% growth in the middle class apps market had been seen with more than 1 million monthly audience.

The information collated by Flurry was obtained from apps that run on the company's platform from the beginning of the first quarter last year to the third quarter this year. TechCrunch pointed out that data was credible considering that more than 400,000 applications uses Flurry's app analytics.

Flurry CEO Simon Khalaf wrote on the company blog, "These numbers are simply unprecedented, especially because most of these app developers have risen organically, and not as a result of consolidation or through mergers and acquisitions."

Research firm Gartner said that app revenues globally would reach USD26 billion or GBP16.1 billion. This would be a 44.4% increase from last year's USD8 billion, Gartner said.