Distimo, a young Dutch company that is entering the slowly but surely saturating market of mobile application distribution and monitoring services, has just released an interesting report about Apple’s App Store. It contains some noteworthy findings about iPhone app pricing and the significant influence prices have on ranking.
Eventually, Distimo aims to release market-wide data on all application stores (Android, Blackberry, etc.) on a monthly basis, free of charge for broad reports on the U.S. and as a paid service for people who would like to get some insight into what’s happening in other countries or specific verticals. They’re starting with the grand daddy of all app stores, Apple’s, and deliver some interesting findings in a first report based on publicly available data for the month of April, 2009, which you can download here.
We got a first look at it, and the key findings we took away from the report are the following:
1) iPhone app prices are dropping
Data for only one month may be insufficient to make any final conclusions, but Distimo has been comparing the pricing for the 100 most popular iPhone apps for a while and found prices are clearly going down. The startup expects that trend to continue in the near future, too. As for the numbers: in April, the total combined price of all apps in the Top 100 decreased from $265 to $244, or down 7.9%. The biggest driver for the average price drop was the increase of $0.99 apps, with 53 carrying that price at the end of the month compared to only 42 on April 1.
2) Entertainment and Communication apps are most popular
No real surprise there, although I still think the iPhone is an excellent device for business purposes too. What I thought was noteworthy was that the rankings for the top 100 applications, both free and paid, change every single day, which means it’s an extremely volatile marketplace. The categories Games, Social Networking and Entertainment were most popular in the free app section, with three, two, and two apps in the top 10 list, respectively. For the paid section, games were even more popular with 5 out of 10 apps in the Top 10 for that category.
Top 5 free apps: Skype, Facebook, iFighter Lite, Pandora Radio, iHandy Level Free
Top 5 paid apps: Flight Control, Pocket God, ParkingLot, Flick Fishing, MLB.com At Bat 2009
3) Paid apps maintain higher ranking longer
Distimo found it was hard for both free and paid apps to maintain a high ranking, but paid apps seemed to be more able to do so than free applications. The most popular paid app (Flight Control) maintained the number one ranking 22 days in a row, while the most popular free app (Skype) was only able to maintain the number one ranking 7 days in a row.
4) Nearly a quarter of all apps got updated during the month of April
From all the free and paid apps that have been in the Top 100 in April, 83 apps released an update during the same month. That represents 24% of all apps that were in the Top 100.
5) lower price = higher ranking (and vice versa)
Distimo analyzed the rankings and prices of the three most popular apps with price changes over time, giving insight into the price elasticity. The first app that was looked at was Zombieville USA (first graph). From the 1st of April, its rank decreased steadily, from No. 4 on April 1st to No. 8 on April 11th. On April 12th, the price of the app was lowered, from $1.99 to $0.99. This had an instant effect on the ranking; it increased from No 10 on April 12th to No. 5 on April 14th. The graph of Fieldrunners (second graph) shows a similar effect.
Similar story for the Bowman app (third graph). The price of this app was raised, from $0.99 to $1.99 on April 22nd. The app lost its No. 5 ranking instantly, decreasing to ranking No. 49 in the Top 100 on the 30th of April.
Probably doesn’t hurt that the majority of Android apps are free.
that’s why there is very less incentive for developer to develop for Android
That may not be the case given that Android is on more than one type of phone whereas Apple just has the iPhone.
most indie devs cant sue copy/ip rip. and place becomes competitive. and prices drop.
In case you’re not aware, the vast majority of iPhone apps are also free.
Actually no. The vast majority of iPhone apps are not free. There are about 12000 free apps on the App Store out of almost 60000 apps.
report: nobody cares about subpar applications on a phone.
Yes people care. And they are not substandard.
Update: Most iPhone apps aren’t worth paying money for, in a related development.
if I start to type
Interesting discovery! I may have to post this online at http://www.appmodo.com
Thanks, thanks, very useful info.
That’s kind of disturbing.
An over saturated market where prices are trending downward, and customers are convinced that apps should be .99 or less and are becoming conditioned to pay less and less for apps is not a recipe for long-term success for developers.
its got to be getting kinda scary out there for app developers. i dont see anything on the horizon that will reverse this trend. we dont need another app startup period. we have enough to work with. the best ipone app is the safari tab. developers are gonna have to come up with something different than just another phone app.
how about focus on building a real stand alone company that transends the internet and mobile. a place where users embed there lives forever. aka strategic natural language location based niche offerings.
CreatorLocator.com – develop yourself
cant believe they crappy ups they selling there
Microsoft fail
http://www.epic.../load/8-1-0-380
I am sorry but you can’t identify any pattern in the price/ranking correlation using the graphs displayed on this page.
Amen brother.
Interesting stats. Not too surprising, however.
Yea this is nothing new. I have been watching the prices of the apps at http://appstoreicons.com and they have been trending downward.
Most of this is pretty much in line with my observations as a developer in the market for the past 10 months.
The fact that all their data seems to come from the top-100 lists makes it pretty specious, however. They are only looking at roughly 0.25% of the total sample size.
This heading is particularly misleading:
”
4) Nearly a quarter of all apps got updated during the month of April
From all the free and paid apps that have been in the Top 100 in April, 83 apps released an update during the same month. That represents 24% of all apps that were in the Top 100.
”
Saying that ALL APPS got updated in April is misleading. It’s only a quarter of the best-selling 0.25% of all apps that got updated. I’m guessing that apps that aren’t selling are also not getting updated, and the overall app update rate is much, much lower.
Natalia from Imangi Studios
Thanks a lot for this valuable info Robin we will continue to read your stats! I still believe though that AAA games will differentiate themselves in the App Store from really cheap productions and very casual stuff, where consumers do perceive higher value for (few) money and be willing to spend the $9,99 like Tiger Woods, Assassin’s Creed, or Let’s Golf at $5,99 or 2XL Supercross for $7,99, those are amazing games for ridiculous price still!!! and selling extremely well too (of course dev costs are much higher from around $350k-600k or Hero of Sparta even more!) so even though your Stats show very low prices (and going down for top 10 top 25), there is space for great productions there too! The Store is incredible and has broken all the game platform rules that existed before!!
Pricing are dropping? Funny what competition does…..
Here are some more price measurements and discussions of discountability of Apps using iTunes…
http://www.quim...r-a-dollar.html
Bottom line is that it’s hard to find apps, Apple doesn’t make it easy to be seen, and like iTunes songs, AppStore apps are purchased in 99c chunks…
Cheaper the better
Sure, if you only want apps that were designed by a single guy still living with Mom and Dad. Some will be outstanding. Most will be worthless.
Cheap is good
Diamonds became FREE – before it was 1$.
http://itunes.a...967307&mt=8
Great to hear that apps are getting cheaper. I think I have had everyone of those free top 5 apps and 3/5 of the paid. Guess I have popular taste