6 ms·

Android App Revenue Only 7% of iOS Revenue? Not So Fast

43 points by nextparadigms 15y ago

betterth 15y ago
This is nothing more than an unsourced fanboy response to a poorly created article. This guy seems to be endlessly harping on Android market share as if having the most users will trick Android developers into forgetting that a much smaller slice of a soon-to-be-larger pie actually is willing to pay for your apps... I get his argument that a more fair comparison would include Google Ad revenue / iAd revenue, instead of just app sales. But the only party stopping that comparison here is really Google. They're super tight lipped about the performance of their app store. And it doesn't take a wild guess to wonder why.
- tintin 15y ago
  "But the only party stopping that comparison here is really Google." When Google would release the stats, would you believe them? There are a lot of stories about comparisons lately. I've seen a lot on HN and here is one from Spacetime Studios (Pocket Legends): http://blogs.computerworld.com/17941/android_ios_app_profit http://blogs.computerworld.com/17941/android_ios_app_profit I think it's a fair comparison. The game got very good reviews on both platforms. But I also like the last quote: "In some ways, it's kind of like the wild, wild West" It's a new area and maybe it's too soon to make any meaningful conclusions.
coob 15y ago
We sell the same apps on Android and iOS. Android revenue is 5% of iOS revenue.
- bryanlarsen 15y ago
  1) Are your placement & review scores on both app stores comparable? 2) Do you have any data on paid versus free/ad-supported apps?
  - ashishgandhi 15y ago
    1) If it's the same app (like the OP says) this is irrelevant. Even if it isn't positioned high on the Android store - doesn't matter. For the OP if he makes the app that he makes - iOS makes him money. 2) What kind of data? Data for his app? OP says he _sells_ on both platforms. Some of us may not like the idea of ads on our apps (somewhat like some of us don't like ads on our personal sites). But you may be correct in suggesting ads work better on Android than paid apps.
    - jsnell 15y ago
      Of course the rating and chart position are relevant! If you want to deduce something from an anecdote like this, these details are absolutely critical. Otherwise you can't distinguish between the performance difference being due to something random (maybe app got featured in one of the stores, causing a positive feedback cycle via the charts), something specific to the app (maybe the app was ported badly to one of the platforms), or something that applies to a wide range of similar apps (maybe the users on one platform just never buy anything). If you find out that the app is #10 on the relevant list in one store and #1000 on the other, one of the first two options seems a lot more likely than the third one. If it has great ratings in one store and mediocre ones in the other, that's rather suggestive of the second option, etc. You say that for the OP only the amount of money he's making matters. Maybe that's true for this single app, but it's not true when making the platform choice any future apps. For those decisions, it's critical to have more understanding of why the app performed badly on Android.
      - ashishgandhi 15y ago
        OP says apps (plural). Your whole argument is based on the probability that one single app was a an outlier.
        jsnell 15y ago
        I'm arguing nothing about the particular case. My issue is with your assertion that the only the amount of money the app (your singular) makes is relevant.
- karman 15y ago
  We sell a relatively expensive ($15) niche app. The Android app outsells the iPhone app 2 to 1. (We believe it is due to the fact that there are far fewer high quality niche apps in the Android Market.)
- marklubi 15y ago
  We also sell the same apps on both platforms and on Android our sales fluctuate between 40 and 60% of the volume we sell on iOS. There has been a significant amount of growth in the Android sales over the last 3-4 months where it grew from around 20% to where it is now.
yardie 15y ago
If you don't like the other guys numbers back them up with your own. Don't just go nuh uh. From the post, Android is at 55% market and 1:1 installed base with iOS so.... nothing. He just doesn't like that iOS had a 1 year headstart on Android and had 3 months longer to get App store sales (july-september).
maxklein 15y ago
I have run endless tests comparing Android revenue to iOS revenue. It's pretty difficult to make money from Android with the same apps. Either with Ads or Paid - the Android version of the exact same app gets less downloaded (even if free), the revenue from Ads dies out quicker and if it's paid, it will get bought much, much less. I believe the core problem is that there is no clear discovery mechanism. With iOS people use iTunes to sync. They open the app store and can try to discover new and unknown apps that happen to be in the charts. The same does not exist in Android. New apps don't get discovered. Almost all apps in Android making money are externally marketed or viral. Making an app for android is like making a website - nobody will come unless you do something else. iOS however, does the marketing for you.
- arnorhs 15y ago
  That's a very good point. A few other points: - Anecdotally, some (most?) of the "normal users" (non techies) I have seen use their android, don't have their Google account set up on the device. I would find it very interesting to know what percentage of people actually end up doing that, because on Android it's optional. - If you don't have your Google account set up on your phone, you can't access the marketplace and some people don't understand how that works and what the marketplace has got to do with their Google account. Normal users associate their phone with their cell provider and don't even realize that Android is made by Google, etc. I simply think that not that many people are installing and setting up apps on their phones. This will probably change in the future. Ironically, this is very similar to the Mac vs PC wars in the 90s, but my belief is that Android will be the dominant player in a few years and even though, the market is small (so far), that that will change a lot. Besides.. having a smaller piece of a bigger pie seems like worthwhile in the long run.
  - mwidarto 15y ago
    I was under the impression that Ice Cream Sandwich will require user to enter the credit card and associate it with their gmail account to activate the device? Is that true? I remember reading something about this.
idspispopd 15y ago
The author is hopeful at best, even to concede each single tenuous argument made, the article still doesn't make a convincing story. To consider even the most simple counter points makes the article entirely feeble. (Does the author believe ad-supported apps are unique to the marketplace?) iOS's high revenue isn't chance: The iOS store is a stronger performer due to not only a better demographic positioning, but it's an extension of the worlds largest music store, it's a longer-term cultivation, it's run by a company with very-high consumer trust, apple seed programs and provide continuous incentives for developers, apple's yields massive advertising and events programs and apple's incredibly high penetration due to inclusion with iTunes and installation on all iOS devices, are each very strong reasons on it's own. Meanwhile, those factors do make it a popular choice for developers who are wanting mainstream consumers, but this doesn't leave android in the dark. Android can tout greater variance/complexity of applications due to more lax regulation by google. Such as porn, apps that are counter the OS's UX, apps that reproduce functionality or overtake certain OS features and of course simple apps. Millions of increasingly fragmented Android devices out there will not make the marketplace more attractive to developers. Plus Google is only half interested, their goal is to get as many Android devices out there, to ensure Google search and services are the only choice for consumers as this is their business model. The emergence of a future run by smart phones where search was commoditised by the phone provider was the motivation for Google into making Android.
- esmevane 15y ago
  I don't think you really answered anything from his article except the mention of the ad-supported applications, which you are correct if impolite about. The rest of your post seems to be filled with content you've prepared ahead of time? For example: 'iOS high revenue is not chance', 'iOS is a popular choice', 'android is fragmented'. OK. But, we've all heard those before, and they are not confronted by the article. What was confronted by the article was deliberate skewing of charts - percentage gaming - in order to show unflattering android numbers instead of actual relevant real-time data. The author suggests that this is misleading, and it is exactly that. It is the sort of political tactic which turns this: "Do you think it's a good idea that children should pass if they have bad test scores?" Into this: "89% of people polled supported No Child Left Behind."
ashleyw 15y ago
He's assuming there aren't ad-supported iOS apps too…
- URSpider94 15y ago
  Exactly. My guess (no data) is that if you lump in ad revenues and in-app sales, then iOS will maintain its lead. I would go so far as to speculate that ads sold on iOS might convert better, since iPhone users are already spending more money on the platform.
BrandonMTurner 15y ago
For what its worth, this data might play a role in debate but doesn't provide proof either way: Our app is #8 in our category in the App Store and #13 in for the category in the Android Marketplace. It is free and has no advertisements; only available in US / Canada markets for both. We only get about ~1250 downloads a day on Android and about ~3500 downloads a day on iOS. With that skew in raw downloads combined with a variance of stereotypical buying habits on each platform it is easy to see a way where iOS revenues could outweigh Android revenues by a lot. From our standpoint, at our scale, advertisements are almost worthless to the amount it would hurt our brand. No agency, in Google itself, has shown us revenue predictions that make our mouth water. We have also experimented with a few direct placements (heavily target to our audience, and we did the design work of the advertisements ourselves) but will likely not continue with that in the future because of how bad they perform.
- mattmanser 15y ago
  But you're using the app as a hook to get them to purchase something else right or why bother? Or are you saying that loseit has no monetization strategy? Because I would have thought that making money out of a weight loss app should be easy. You're talking about a market that will pay silly amounts just for the idea of being thin. That you see people advertising all the time for products to solve the problem because there's so much money in it.
  - BrandonMTurner 15y ago
    Right now we make very little money from the advertisements and / or products we sell (We sell Fitbits, Withings scales, our book, tshirts). We have a strategy that we have not executed on yet but have been heads down working on for the last few months. You might be surprised by the buying behaviors of "Do-It-Yourself" weight loss users compared to the rest of the industry. Much of users come from Weight Watchers because they don't want to pay anymore. Moreover, no one goes to WW thinking they are going to get anything for free, where 100% of users come to us thinking they will not be spending a penny. This is something we will work and try to rite the ship as we execute our plans. Once we do that, we will have the other half of the data that I mentioned (in my original comment) about which one brings in more money. As of right now, Lose It! is free and we lose money as we build our platform and brand.
albertogh 15y ago
I'd say it's even lower than 7%, both for paid and ad supported apps, at least on my experience of having several applications for both iOS and Android. There is a small percentage of Android users willing to pay for apps, primarily due to Google not requiring a payment method when setting up your account and lots of Android users who don't use the smartphone features. This, in turn, makes the CPM lower in ad supported apps, since the ads have smaller returns and thus the advertisers pay less for them (compared to iOS). Just to prove my point, here are yesterday's profits for a couple of apps: - Paid app: - iOS: $128 - Android: $6 - Ad supported app: - iOS: $1285 - Android: $21 And that's without taking into account that Apple does most of the tax collection/invoicing for me while Google does not, despite taking the same sales percentage.
- bookwormAT 15y ago
  which apps are that? Thanks for sharing.
  - albertogh 15y ago
    Sorry, I'd prefer to not disclose that.
  - friendy123 15y ago
    Gasofa, buzzie, iRae
- arnorhs 15y ago
  Ok, fair, but that is some really anecdotal evidence. Also, the amounts are low enough that you could even dismiss the evidence as having too low of a sample size. This may hold true to your own personal experience, but it doesn't really have anything to do with getting a sense whether the income generated from Android devices is 5% or 10%. You might be doing a terrible job at marketing to Android users, or have the wrong business model etc. (I'm not saying you are, I'm just saying we don't have any evidence from your information.) I don't think anybody's trying to make the argument that in general Android produces more revenue. Only that it might not be as low as 7%, but possibly around 10% ? Also, the article is criticizing the data the stats are based off, not trying to make an argument for the numbers being any different in real life. I'm not saying you are wrong (of course you know your numbers better than anybody), I'm just saying that argument is completely irrelevant to the conversation. Nice job, though, on the revenues. Your app(s) seem to be doing well :)
mcritz 15y ago
The context of the two platforms is very telling. You buy an iPhone in a crystal palace. You buy an Android phone from a "Wireless Store" between a bodega and a paycheck loan store. The technology is democratized, but the audience varies.
gonzo 15y ago
Seriously? An article with no stats?
Jyaif 15y ago
For what it's worth, for me the Android revenue is 1000% the iOS revenues (for the exact same game). There's less competition on Android, and I suspect users are more into hardcore games. ( http://itunes.apple.com/app/pewpew/id370379981?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/app/pewpew/id370379981?mt=8 )

43 points by nextparadigms 15y ago

This is nothing more than an unsourced fanboy response to a poorly created article. This guy seems to be endlessly harping on Android market share as if having the most users will trick Android developers into forgetting that a much smaller slice of a soon-to-be-larger pie actually is willing to pay for your apps... I get his argument that a more fair comparison would include Google Ad revenue / iAd revenue, instead of just app sales. But the only party stopping that comparison here is really Google. They're super tight lipped about the performance of their app store. And it doesn't take a wild guess to wonder why.

tintin 15y ago
"But the only party stopping that comparison here is really Google." When Google would release the stats, would you believe them? There are a lot of stories about comparisons lately. I've seen a lot on HN and here is one from Spacetime Studios (Pocket Legends): http://blogs.computerworld.com/17941/android_ios_app_profit http://blogs.computerworld.com/17941/android_ios_app_profit I think it's a fair comparison. The game got very good reviews on both platforms. But I also like the last quote: "In some ways, it's kind of like the wild, wild West" It's a new area and maybe it's too soon to make any meaningful conclusions.

coob 15y ago

We sell the same apps on Android and iOS. Android revenue is 5% of iOS revenue.

bryanlarsen 15y ago
1) Are your placement & review scores on both app stores comparable? 2) Do you have any data on paid versus free/ad-supported apps?
- ashishgandhi 15y ago
  1) If it's the same app (like the OP says) this is irrelevant. Even if it isn't positioned high on the Android store - doesn't matter. For the OP if he makes the app that he makes - iOS makes him money. 2) What kind of data? Data for his app? OP says he _sells_ on both platforms. Some of us may not like the idea of ads on our apps (somewhat like some of us don't like ads on our personal sites). But you may be correct in suggesting ads work better on Android than paid apps.
  - jsnell 15y ago
    Of course the rating and chart position are relevant! If you want to deduce something from an anecdote like this, these details are absolutely critical. Otherwise you can't distinguish between the performance difference being due to something random (maybe app got featured in one of the stores, causing a positive feedback cycle via the charts), something specific to the app (maybe the app was ported badly to one of the platforms), or something that applies to a wide range of similar apps (maybe the users on one platform just never buy anything). If you find out that the app is #10 on the relevant list in one store and #1000 on the other, one of the first two options seems a lot more likely than the third one. If it has great ratings in one store and mediocre ones in the other, that's rather suggestive of the second option, etc. You say that for the OP only the amount of money he's making matters. Maybe that's true for this single app, but it's not true when making the platform choice any future apps. For those decisions, it's critical to have more understanding of why the app performed badly on Android.
    - ashishgandhi 15y ago
      OP says apps (plural). Your whole argument is based on the probability that one single app was a an outlier.
      - jsnell 15y ago
        I'm arguing nothing about the particular case. My issue is with your assertion that the only the amount of money the app (your singular) makes is relevant.
karman 15y ago
We sell a relatively expensive ($15) niche app. The Android app outsells the iPhone app 2 to 1. (We believe it is due to the fact that there are far fewer high quality niche apps in the Android Market.)
marklubi 15y ago
We also sell the same apps on both platforms and on Android our sales fluctuate between 40 and 60% of the volume we sell on iOS. There has been a significant amount of growth in the Android sales over the last 3-4 months where it grew from around 20% to where it is now.

yardie 15y ago

If you don't like the other guys numbers back them up with your own. Don't just go nuh uh. From the post, Android is at 55% market and 1:1 installed base with iOS so.... nothing. He just doesn't like that iOS had a 1 year headstart on Android and had 3 months longer to get App store sales (july-september).

maxklein 15y ago

I have run endless tests comparing Android revenue to iOS revenue. It's pretty difficult to make money from Android with the same apps. Either with Ads or Paid - the Android version of the exact same app gets less downloaded (even if free), the revenue from Ads dies out quicker and if it's paid, it will get bought much, much less. I believe the core problem is that there is no clear discovery mechanism. With iOS people use iTunes to sync. They open the app store and can try to discover new and unknown apps that happen to be in the charts. The same does not exist in Android. New apps don't get discovered. Almost all apps in Android making money are externally marketed or viral. Making an app for android is like making a website - nobody will come unless you do something else. iOS however, does the marketing for you.

arnorhs 15y ago
That's a very good point. A few other points: - Anecdotally, some (most?) of the "normal users" (non techies) I have seen use their android, don't have their Google account set up on the device. I would find it very interesting to know what percentage of people actually end up doing that, because on Android it's optional. - If you don't have your Google account set up on your phone, you can't access the marketplace and some people don't understand how that works and what the marketplace has got to do with their Google account. Normal users associate their phone with their cell provider and don't even realize that Android is made by Google, etc. I simply think that not that many people are installing and setting up apps on their phones. This will probably change in the future. Ironically, this is very similar to the Mac vs PC wars in the 90s, but my belief is that Android will be the dominant player in a few years and even though, the market is small (so far), that that will change a lot. Besides.. having a smaller piece of a bigger pie seems like worthwhile in the long run.
- mwidarto 15y ago
  I was under the impression that Ice Cream Sandwich will require user to enter the credit card and associate it with their gmail account to activate the device? Is that true? I remember reading something about this.

idspispopd 15y ago

The author is hopeful at best, even to concede each single tenuous argument made, the article still doesn't make a convincing story. To consider even the most simple counter points makes the article entirely feeble. (Does the author believe ad-supported apps are unique to the marketplace?) iOS's high revenue isn't chance: The iOS store is a stronger performer due to not only a better demographic positioning, but it's an extension of the worlds largest music store, it's a longer-term cultivation, it's run by a company with very-high consumer trust, apple seed programs and provide continuous incentives for developers, apple's yields massive advertising and events programs and apple's incredibly high penetration due to inclusion with iTunes and installation on all iOS devices, are each very strong reasons on it's own. Meanwhile, those factors do make it a popular choice for developers who are wanting mainstream consumers, but this doesn't leave android in the dark. Android can tout greater variance/complexity of applications due to more lax regulation by google. Such as porn, apps that are counter the OS's UX, apps that reproduce functionality or overtake certain OS features and of course simple apps. Millions of increasingly fragmented Android devices out there will not make the marketplace more attractive to developers. Plus Google is only half interested, their goal is to get as many Android devices out there, to ensure Google search and services are the only choice for consumers as this is their business model. The emergence of a future run by smart phones where search was commoditised by the phone provider was the motivation for Google into making Android.

esmevane 15y ago
I don't think you really answered anything from his article except the mention of the ad-supported applications, which you are correct if impolite about. The rest of your post seems to be filled with content you've prepared ahead of time? For example: 'iOS high revenue is not chance', 'iOS is a popular choice', 'android is fragmented'. OK. But, we've all heard those before, and they are not confronted by the article. What was confronted by the article was deliberate skewing of charts - percentage gaming - in order to show unflattering android numbers instead of actual relevant real-time data. The author suggests that this is misleading, and it is exactly that. It is the sort of political tactic which turns this: "Do you think it's a good idea that children should pass if they have bad test scores?" Into this: "89% of people polled supported No Child Left Behind."

ashleyw 15y ago

He's assuming there aren't ad-supported iOS apps too…

URSpider94 15y ago
Exactly. My guess (no data) is that if you lump in ad revenues and in-app sales, then iOS will maintain its lead. I would go so far as to speculate that ads sold on iOS might convert better, since iPhone users are already spending more money on the platform.

BrandonMTurner 15y ago

For what its worth, this data might play a role in debate but doesn't provide proof either way: Our app is #8 in our category in the App Store and #13 in for the category in the Android Marketplace. It is free and has no advertisements; only available in US / Canada markets for both. We only get about ~1250 downloads a day on Android and about ~3500 downloads a day on iOS. With that skew in raw downloads combined with a variance of stereotypical buying habits on each platform it is easy to see a way where iOS revenues could outweigh Android revenues by a lot. From our standpoint, at our scale, advertisements are almost worthless to the amount it would hurt our brand. No agency, in Google itself, has shown us revenue predictions that make our mouth water. We have also experimented with a few direct placements (heavily target to our audience, and we did the design work of the advertisements ourselves) but will likely not continue with that in the future because of how bad they perform.

mattmanser 15y ago
But you're using the app as a hook to get them to purchase something else right or why bother? Or are you saying that loseit has no monetization strategy? Because I would have thought that making money out of a weight loss app should be easy. You're talking about a market that will pay silly amounts just for the idea of being thin. That you see people advertising all the time for products to solve the problem because there's so much money in it.
- BrandonMTurner 15y ago
  Right now we make very little money from the advertisements and / or products we sell (We sell Fitbits, Withings scales, our book, tshirts). We have a strategy that we have not executed on yet but have been heads down working on for the last few months. You might be surprised by the buying behaviors of "Do-It-Yourself" weight loss users compared to the rest of the industry. Much of users come from Weight Watchers because they don't want to pay anymore. Moreover, no one goes to WW thinking they are going to get anything for free, where 100% of users come to us thinking they will not be spending a penny. This is something we will work and try to rite the ship as we execute our plans. Once we do that, we will have the other half of the data that I mentioned (in my original comment) about which one brings in more money. As of right now, Lose It! is free and we lose money as we build our platform and brand.

albertogh 15y ago

I'd say it's even lower than 7%, both for paid and ad supported apps, at least on my experience of having several applications for both iOS and Android. There is a small percentage of Android users willing to pay for apps, primarily due to Google not requiring a payment method when setting up your account and lots of Android users who don't use the smartphone features. This, in turn, makes the CPM lower in ad supported apps, since the ads have smaller returns and thus the advertisers pay less for them (compared to iOS). Just to prove my point, here are yesterday's profits for a couple of apps: - Paid app: - iOS: $128 - Android: $6 - Ad supported app: - iOS: $1285 - Android: $21 And that's without taking into account that Apple does most of the tax collection/invoicing for me while Google does not, despite taking the same sales percentage.

bookwormAT 15y ago
which apps are that? Thanks for sharing.
- albertogh 15y ago
  Sorry, I'd prefer to not disclose that.
- friendy123 15y ago
  Gasofa, buzzie, iRae
arnorhs 15y ago
Ok, fair, but that is some really anecdotal evidence. Also, the amounts are low enough that you could even dismiss the evidence as having too low of a sample size. This may hold true to your own personal experience, but it doesn't really have anything to do with getting a sense whether the income generated from Android devices is 5% or 10%. You might be doing a terrible job at marketing to Android users, or have the wrong business model etc. (I'm not saying you are, I'm just saying we don't have any evidence from your information.) I don't think anybody's trying to make the argument that in general Android produces more revenue. Only that it might not be as low as 7%, but possibly around 10% ? Also, the article is criticizing the data the stats are based off, not trying to make an argument for the numbers being any different in real life. I'm not saying you are wrong (of course you know your numbers better than anybody), I'm just saying that argument is completely irrelevant to the conversation. Nice job, though, on the revenues. Your app(s) seem to be doing well :)

mcritz 15y ago

The context of the two platforms is very telling. You buy an iPhone in a crystal palace. You buy an Android phone from a "Wireless Store" between a bodega and a paycheck loan store. The technology is democratized, but the audience varies.

gonzo 15y ago

Seriously? An article with no stats?

Jyaif 15y ago

For what it's worth, for me the Android revenue is 1000% the iOS revenues (for the exact same game). There's less competition on Android, and I suspect users are more into hardcore games. ( http://itunes.apple.com/app/pewpew/id370379981?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/app/pewpew/id370379981?mt=8 )