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According to some, the Google Play store is now grossing more money than Apple’s App Store. But on a per-downloader basis, it looks like the average iOS user is

by egwynn 11y ago

According to some, the Google Play store is now grossing more money than Apple’s App Store. But on a per-downloader basis, it looks like the average iOS user is way more likely to spend money on any particular app than an Android user. So if you’re after users who spend money, it seems like a no brainer. But I have no idea if this same dynamic applied to the PC/Mac days.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago
Money per user seems an odd metric to optimize for in the software world where you can duplicate your product infinitely for free. There are software sales situations when that makes sense, bespoke enterprise software etc. but not phone apos as far as I can tell.
- egwynn 11y ago
  I think it's important when you're trying to advertise your product. If there is a marginal cost for each set of eyeballs you can attract, then you'll probably want to start with the richest set of eyeballs.
  - x0x0 11y ago
    Or you have non-trivial per-user costs: servers, bandwidth, support.
  - mattmaroon 11y ago
    That's true, though to a large extent, the cost of those eyeballs is relative to the value of them. Android ads cost less because they convert less. So it's really about which platform has the highest ROI.
sitharus 11y ago
It probably did, but the scale was vastly different. Most metrics give iOS a 30-40% market share depending on how they count it, but there's no measure that give MacOS more than 15% at the most with around 5% being the most common 10 years ago. The marketplace was also vastly different - when Apple was at its peak the market was physical, boxed copies had to be shipped to stores or via mail order. Now the respective stores give access to the entire market with one upload. The other major differentiator is the number of users likely to download an app in the first place. Stats are very hard to get, but the general feel is iPhone users are much more likely to install apps, with a lot of Android users just buying the cheapest phone. There's a lot of money in both markets though, so picking one is really a matter of where your company can ship first.
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bestnameever 11y ago
But aren't there almost double the number of Android user's out there than iOS users? Any idea on how many of those are low end devices sold to users who just want a phone and have no interest in the play store? I just get the feeling that looking at averages of the entire platform in this instance can be misleading as there are different types of users.
- fleitz 11y ago
  Users? sure, customers?... probably not.
- joelwilliamson 11y ago
  There are more than 5x as many Android users than iOS users.
slaction 11y ago
According to some the Earth is less than 6k years old, but that doesn't make them any less wrong, kind of like what you just said. App Annie shows that of all revenue from paid app downloads, Apple accounts for 70% of it, which is up from 60% in 2014.
tsotha 11y ago
As a vendor do you care more about the number of people who use your product or how much money you're making?

by egwynn 11y ago

ZeroGravitas 11y ago

Money per user seems an odd metric to optimize for in the software world where you can duplicate your product infinitely for free. There are software sales situations when that makes sense, bespoke enterprise software etc. but not phone apos as far as I can tell.

egwynn 11y ago
I think it's important when you're trying to advertise your product. If there is a marginal cost for each set of eyeballs you can attract, then you'll probably want to start with the richest set of eyeballs.
- x0x0 11y ago
  Or you have non-trivial per-user costs: servers, bandwidth, support.
- mattmaroon 11y ago
  That's true, though to a large extent, the cost of those eyeballs is relative to the value of them. Android ads cost less because they convert less. So it's really about which platform has the highest ROI.

sitharus 11y ago

It probably did, but the scale was vastly different. Most metrics give iOS a 30-40% market share depending on how they count it, but there's no measure that give MacOS more than 15% at the most with around 5% being the most common 10 years ago. The marketplace was also vastly different - when Apple was at its peak the market was physical, boxed copies had to be shipped to stores or via mail order. Now the respective stores give access to the entire market with one upload. The other major differentiator is the number of users likely to download an app in the first place. Stats are very hard to get, but the general feel is iPhone users are much more likely to install apps, with a lot of Android users just buying the cheapest phone. There's a lot of money in both markets though, so picking one is really a matter of where your company can ship first.

deleted 11y ago

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bestnameever 11y ago

But aren't there almost double the number of Android user's out there than iOS users? Any idea on how many of those are low end devices sold to users who just want a phone and have no interest in the play store? I just get the feeling that looking at averages of the entire platform in this instance can be misleading as there are different types of users.

fleitz 11y ago
Users? sure, customers?... probably not.
joelwilliamson 11y ago
There are more than 5x as many Android users than iOS users.

slaction 11y ago

According to some the Earth is less than 6k years old, but that doesn't make them any less wrong, kind of like what you just said. App Annie shows that of all revenue from paid app downloads, Apple accounts for 70% of it, which is up from 60% in 2014.

tsotha 11y ago

As a vendor do you care more about the number of people who use your product or how much money you're making?