Distimo's 2012 year in review report analyzes the current state of the Apple App Store, Google Play

App tracking company Distimo released a year-end report today which detailed Google Play's significant growth in daily revenue, the ability of an app to quickly reach one million downloads and listed the top cross-platform publishers. The report shows that Google Play showed significant growth in the past fourth months, growing 43 percent in aggregated daily revenue across 20 of the biggest countries. Comparatively, the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad grew 21 percent in the same time frame. Back in January 2012, the Apple App Store grew 51 percent in estimated daily revenues, with the iPad daily revenue increasing by 71 percent and the iPhone by 40 percent. Despite Google Play's impressive growth in the last four months, on a typical day in November 2012 in 20 of the largest countries, revenues in the Apple App Store exceeded $15 million, while Google Play revenues were just below $3.5 million. Distimo used developer Omgpop's Pictionary-like game Draw Something as an example of an app that reached one million downloads in a short amount of time -- nine days in Draw Something's case. Distimo found an app that reached one million users even faster in South Korean publisher Naver's puzzle title Line Pop, which was estimated to reach one million downloads in one day and 1.75 million in 72 hours. Line Pop also generated $1 million in estimated revenue within the first 12 days since launch. In comparison, it took AOL nine years and Facebook nine months to reach the one million user milestone. Distimo added that a significant uptick in downloads is most common with game apps, which are the most downloaded and highest revenue generating types of apps. However, other genres like entertainment and social apps can generate a lot of downloads as well. Distimo also found that the amount of revenue coming from in-app purchases increased from 53 percent to 69 percent in 2012, demonstrating the popularity of in-app purchases as a monetization strategy among publishers. There were still successful apps and publishers making money with a one-off fee, premium strategy. On iOS, 35 percent of revenue from the top 10 publishers derived from one-off fees. For example, developer Mojang's Minecraft - Pocket Edition was a successful app, as well as other top publishers including Electronic Arts, Apple and Gameloft. Distimo put together a top 10 chart of the highest grossing cross-platform publishers (developer Supercell as the single app store exception), nine of which were gaming companies, with Apple as the lone non-gaming publisher.

Social Pro Daily

Distimo's 2012 year in review report analyzes the current state of the Apple App Store, Google Play

scott.reyburn

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

scott.reyburn