The research company judged the applications based on impacts on consumers and industry players, loyalty, business model, considering revenue, consumer value and estimated market penetration.
After money transfers, location-based services were placed second, while mobile search and mobile browsing were third and fourth respectively.
Mobile health monitoring made up the top five, while advertising, instant messaging and music also featured in the list of ten.
Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner, said: "We predict that most users will use no more than five mobile applications at a time and most future opportunities will come from niche market 'killer applications'."
She also noted that the increasing popularity of smartphones means that the dominance of mobile carriers in the applications market is falling.
In related news, Gartner research recently revealed that global mobile phone sales reached 308.9 million units in the third quarter of 2009, which is a 0.1 per cent increase compared to the same time last year.
