More than double last year's pathetic 8.2bn total.
The market analyst is incredibly bullish on the longer term prospects for mobile apps, predicting over 185bn lifetime downloads between July 2008 and the end of 2014.
It adds that app store revenue is projected to surpass $15.1bn in 2011, both from purchases and ads. This is a 190 per cent increase from 2010 revenue of $5.2bn.
Free downloads are forecast to account for 81 per cent of total mobile application store downloads in 2011.
This percentage has been decreasing since the first launches in 2008, and Gartner estimates free downloads will continue to decrease in 2011, but it will increase again from 2012 through 2014.
Users will begin paying for more applications as they perceive values in the concept of mobile applications, and they become more trustful of billing mechanisms.
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The firm is also confident apps can thrive in the coming era of rich web-based content.
"Many are wondering if the app frenzy we have been witnessing is just a fashion, and, like many others, it shall pass. We do not think so," said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner.
"We strongly believe there is a sizable opportunity for application stores in the future. However, applications will have to grow up and deliver a superior experience to the one that a web-based app will be able to deliver.
"Native apps will survive the web enhancements only when they will provide a more-personal and richer experience to the 'vanilla' experience that a web-based app will deliver."
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