Distimo App Store Report Shows Apple And Google App Markets Still Booming

Distimo, the app store intelligence startup, annually creates a Global App Stores Report covering trends and market data. This year-end report looks at the winners in 2012 which are, predictably, the Apple App Store and Google Play.

The skinny on the headlines are: Google Play showed tremendous growth, but the Apple App Store maintained its course. Growth in revenues in Google Play is close to Apple, but the latter has higher absolute daily revenue. Draw Something hit 1 million users in nine days, but Asian titles often seem able to trounce those figures. Apple App Store revenues are over $15 million USD a day, and $3.5 million in Google Play. The app world remains a hits business. Just seven apps made up 10 percent of the revenues on the iPhone. Revenue derived from in-apps payments is still going up, but a paid-only strategy can still work very well. And Russians are in love with the iPad, apparently.

According to Distimo, Android may have won in the device installs games but developers have continued to complain about Google Play and its lack of monetization. Meanwhile, Apple continued its powerhouse performance as a store where developers could make money. Its 700,000 apps meant discovery got harder and thus more difficult for developers to get traction.

The report looks at how the stores compare, who the clear publisher and application winners of 2012 are, and the trends and stats that point towards who will win in 2013.

The main findings of the report are available for download here and below you’ll find some illustrations:

• Google Play showed tremendous growth during the past four months, with an aggregated growth in daily revenue of 43% across 20 of the largest countries, while the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad grew by 21% in daily revenue in the same period.

• Even though the growth in revenues in Google Play in the last four months is close to that of the Apple App Store in 2012, the growth in daily revenues in the Apple App Store was higher than the total daily revenues in Google Play when comparing absolute daily revenue values.

• Draw Something, one of the best known apps of 2012, reached 1M users in 9 days, however Distimo has found it is possible to gain 1M users even faster. Naver, one of the most successful Asian publishers, launched five applications at the end of November 2012, and all five quickly became the most popular applications in many Asian countries. We estimated Line Pop, the most popular of the five, to have generated 1.75M downloads within 72 hours.

• Looking at the worldwide download volumes, the app store opportunity is large. On a typical day in November 2012, the revenues in the Apple App Store exceeded $15M USD, while in Google Play the revenues are just below $3.5M USD in 20 of the largest countries in both app stores.

• Seven applications were responsible for 10% of the revenues in November 2012 in the Apple App Store for iPhone, which is significantly lower number of applications than in January 2012. Moreover, in the Apple App Store for iPad, six applications were responsible for 10% of the revenues, while in Google Play this figure was four.

• The country with the highest tablet proclivity is Russia, where 46% of all iOS downloads are on the iPad. Other iPad savvy countries are The Netherlands and Finland with 38% and 35%, respectively. Japan is the country with the least tablet proclivity, as only 7% of all iOS downloads are iPad apps. The iPad revenues are already higher than the iPhone revenues in some countries when looking at revenues, e.g. Russia.

• The proportion of revenue that derived from in-apps increased from 53% to 69% in 2012. However, in 2012 there were still some publishers who were very successful with a paid-only strategy. Moreover, 35% of the revenue from the top 10 publishers was derived from one-off fees in 2012.

Average Selling Prices in Each Category in 2012 - iPad

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Average Selling Prices in Each Category in 2012 - iPhone

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Downloads and Revenues Per Category

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In-Apps Popularity Continues to Grow

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Large Differences in Tablet Procliv ity Among Countries

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Large Differences in Tablet Proclivity Among Countries

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The Road To 1M Users

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The Winners Take It All

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Top 10 Applications - Apple

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Top 10 Applications - Google

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Top 10 Publisher - Apple

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Top 10 Publisher - Google

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Top 10 Publisher

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United States Still Leads in Terms of Revenues