HTML5 is getting big. And not just because it saves developers precious time and resources that would normally been used to optimize an app for several different platforms.

Apple first touted the idea of finding an alternative to Flash many years ago, citing power consumption issues on iOS.  And millions of iPads later, the company is helping to achieve just that. Citrix’s mobile predictions report, posted earlier this year, surveyed Apple’s influence on the development scene, and noted that now is the time for Flash site owners and developers to move on.

As it turns out however, the answer as to why we’re seeing this rapid adoption of HTML5 so early in the technology’s life-cycle is not that clear across the board. This infographic (see hi-res version here) provides some interesting data from a broader point of view.

Flash has an install base of over 2 billion, and development efforts cost its biggest sponsors a total of $70 billion+. In comparison, over $500 billion went into HTML5 from Google and Apple alone, even though it still has a couple of years before it gets an official approval from the W3C.  The latter framework is fully supported by about 200 million end points.

Performance tests also accounted for a few interesting tidbits of info. Flash achieves frame rates between four to ten times higher than HTML5 when handling various particle effects,  at one sixth of the average CPU utilization. And Google’s Flock of Geese test reveals that the native C++ based iOS client is four to (just over) nine times faster than HTML5.

The bottom line: it’s quite easy to see that the new contender to the app throne still has a lot of maturing to do. Companies like AppMobi, the developer of a mobile-optimized jQuery alternative are making it happen, but it may be that some of the early buzz has not yet been justified to the fullest extent.