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It is Very Tough for a New App Publisher to Gain Traction

Chuck Jones
Senior Contributor
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
I cover technology companies, worldwide economies and the stock market
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This article is more than 10 years old.

Distimo tracks over 2.6 billion downloads per quarter for major developers worldwide.  It measures downloads and revenue of apps and developers.  In its most recent report covering the October 2012 to January 2013 timeframe some of the key findings were:

  • Of the top 250 publishers only 2% were new to the Apple App Store in the US
  • Only 3% were new to Google Play in the US
  • The top new US Apple App Store publisher issued 2 free apps
  • The top new US Google Play publisher issued 6 free apps
  • 17% of the top 300 apps in the US Apple App Store were new
  • 12% of the top 300 apps in US Google Play were new
  • The new apps that generate the greatest number of downloads and revenue are spinoffs from current apps (think new versions of Angry Birds)

Google Play is growing revenue faster (107% when looking over a six month timeframe) than the Apple App Store (52% growth) but Apple’s App Store is still significantly bigger than Google Play.  Google Play did grow 17% month over month vs. Apple’s at 3% so it will be interesting to see if Apple’s growth rate has leveled off going forward.

Apple announced on February 12 that it had paid out over $8 billion to developers since the inception of its App Store.  This compares to the over $7 billion that it announced on January 7.  While it may not be a $1 billion increase since we don’t know the exact amounts, Apple still has created a very important marketplace.

New publishers account for even a smaller percentage of revenue than the actual numbers of new publishers.  On the Apple App Store new publishers were 2% of the total but generated less than 0.5% of revenue.  On Google Play they were 3% of total publishers but generated less than 1.5% of revenue.

However, when you look at new app revenue it is a very different story since new apps can come from current publishers.  On the Apple App Store new apps generated about 25% of total app revenue and on Google Play is was about 18%

As can be seen by the following list of apps to reach $1 million in revenue over a four month timeframe known franchises such as Angry Birds, Grand Theft Auto and Temple Run have a huge advantage.  Some of them reached over one million downloads within a day of being released.

Disclosure: My family and I own Apple shares

 

Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones