Android slowly rising, currently at seven percent

A study revealed by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster that draws on data from both Androlib and Apple shows even more clearly than before that from the perspective of a developer who wants to monetize an application, there is only one mobile platform: iOS. Though free applications dominate all mobile platforms, the percentage of paid apps on iOS is more than 10 times greater than that of Android, with devs netting 14.5 times more money.

The data, which is up to date as of last week for Android Market and the end of September for the App Store, shows that Apple has a 3:1 advantage in terms of app downloads and a nearly 2:1 advantage in the average number of application on the average Android device. Munster estimates there are 200 million total Android devices with an average of 34 apps on each, versus 71 app on the average iOS device.

While the average selling price of an Android app was more than 50 percent higher than the ASP of an iOS app, paid apps make up only 1.3 percent of Android Market "sales" compared to 13.5 percent of App Store sales. Out of 6.75 billion Android app downloads -- roughly one-third the number of iOS downloads -- only 90 million are paid apps.

The Android Market is slightly younger than the iOS App Store (by about six months), but this doesn't mitigate the large gaps between the two stores in terms of both gross revenue and the proceeds paid to developers, both of which hover at 14.5 times higher under Apple. To date, Android developers have made almost $240 million compared to iOS developer payouts of $3.5 billion (on sales of $342 million versus $5 billion, respectively). Android developers have complained about fragmentation and other problems that they see as obstacles to generating more revenue, including the higher tendency of Android users to avoid paid apps.

Munster added that while Google has increased the amount of app dollars spent on its platform more recently and that he believes the platform will continue to grow faster than iOS, the firm believes Apple is likely to retain at least 70 percent of mobile app dollars over the next few years. In part this may be due to the fact that the more popular lower-end Android devices don't lend themselves to app sales as much as the higher-end smartphones, since they are marketed at budget-conscious consumers and often compete with carrier-branded and provided apps that Apple doesn't allow on iOS devices.

While the volume of downloads on Android is expected to eventually surpass the App Store, the iOS platform is expected to continue generating more revenue than Android by at least a 2:1 margin through 2016, the firm estimates. [via AppleInsider]

by MacNN Staff