iPhone market analysis - Part 2 - Apps
In our previous post we talked about the worldwide smartphone share, now its time to move on to the the root of the iPhone: the iTunes AppStore.
As of June 29th 2009, according to 148apps.biz, more than 50.000 active applications from more than 14.000 publishers are available at the US Apple's AppStore1 (since May 2008, more than 4.000 applications are no longer available). Applications in the AppStore are classified within 20 different categories. The following table shows their distribution:
By April 2009, there had been more than a thousand million of downloads (including free and paid applications and updates). This, however, doesn't account for a high revenue when compared to Apple's hardware sales: the average application price is $2,46 ($1,43 when considering only games) with a weekly falling tendency, and more than 23% of the applications are free. The following chart shows an iPhone application price distribution:
The paid-to-free download ratios are pretty low, with a conversion revenue of a $1,99 application of $0,28 to $0,06 (148apps.biz). Applications with the higher number of free/lite/demo downloads account for the least paid sales, as shown in the following chart:
However, releasing a free version may sometimes boost the sales of a paid application (mainly in games), improving the results even a couple of weeks afterwards, as users complete all the available free stuff.
It is interesting to notice that, while iPhone users are very likely to download applications, due to the readiness of the AppStore, they are also less likely to spend big amounts of money in those apps, being the free ones the top-downloaded. In the other hand, users of other smartphone platforms are willing to spend more money in their applications (TechCrunch) -although they download less of them-, as shown in the following chart:
But this chart doesn't include Google Android, whose Android Market has experienced the second highest activity growth in terms of downloads, just behind the iPhone.
As of June 29th 2009, according to 148apps.biz, more than 50.000 active applications from more than 14.000 publishers are available at the US Apple's AppStore1 (since May 2008, more than 4.000 applications are no longer available). Applications in the AppStore are classified within 20 different categories. The following table shows their distribution:
By April 2009, there had been more than a thousand million of downloads (including free and paid applications and updates). This, however, doesn't account for a high revenue when compared to Apple's hardware sales: the average application price is $2,46 ($1,43 when considering only games) with a weekly falling tendency, and more than 23% of the applications are free. The following chart shows an iPhone application price distribution:
The paid-to-free download ratios are pretty low, with a conversion revenue of a $1,99 application of $0,28 to $0,06 (148apps.biz). Applications with the higher number of free/lite/demo downloads account for the least paid sales, as shown in the following chart:
However, releasing a free version may sometimes boost the sales of a paid application (mainly in games), improving the results even a couple of weeks afterwards, as users complete all the available free stuff.
It is interesting to notice that, while iPhone users are very likely to download applications, due to the readiness of the AppStore, they are also less likely to spend big amounts of money in those apps, being the free ones the top-downloaded. In the other hand, users of other smartphone platforms are willing to spend more money in their applications (TechCrunch) -although they download less of them-, as shown in the following chart:
But this chart doesn't include Google Android, whose Android Market has experienced the second highest activity growth in terms of downloads, just behind the iPhone.
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