Will Android apps be worth the effort for developers in 2012
Source: Flurry
iPhone making more money says Flurry, but fortune may favour the multi-platform braves next year
Why are so many notable apps still only available for iPhone (and iPad) rather than Android? It's a state of affairs that has sparked controversy on our daily Apps Rush posts due to the fact that on some days, the roundup of new apps is iOS-heavy.
We've always argued that the post is a reflection of what's being released, although we've been working hard to find more sources to ensure apps for Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and other platforms aren't slipping through the net.
Will more developers remove their iOS blinkers in 2012? There is some new research to chew over on this matter. We'll start with analytics firm Flurry, which regularly publishes stats on trends among the 55,000 developers using its tools in their apps �C around 25% of all apps downloaded from the App Store and Android Market, so a credible sample.
Its latest blog post explains that of new app projects started so far in the fourth quarter this year using Flurry's tools on iOS and Android, 73% were iOS apps and just 27% were Android apps. That compares to a 63-37 ratio on the first quarter of 2011.
Flurry highlights the launch of the iPhone 4S, and Apple's expansion beyond its single-operator deal in the US with AT&T to distribute iPhones through Verizon Wireless and Sprint as key factors, along with the launch of the iPad 2.
Yet as it points out, more than 200 million activated Android devices and one billion Android Market downloads a month show the momentum behind Google's OS. The US in particular has become a booming market for Android smartphone sales: new research from NPD Group claims that between January and October 2011, 53% of smartphones sold there were running Android, ahead of iPhone's 29% share and BlackBerry's plummeting 11%.
So why the iOS blinkers? Money. Flurry has some stats here too, which it says support anecdotal claims by developers that if they release an app for both iOS and Android, they'll make three or four times as much money from the iOS version.
Flurry has crunched data from a sample of "top apps with versions on both iOS and Android", although its analysis focuses on in-app purchases rather than download fees or advertising. "Running the numbers, we find that, on average, for every $1.00 generated on iOS, the same app will generate $0.24 on Android," claims the company.
"Despite installed base numbers and daily activations, the almighty dollar still drives business decision making among application developers. And with the critical holiday season upon us, developers are betting on iOS for Christmas 2011."
There's a big caveat here, though, which is this: some developers who do support Android are capitalising on the relative lack of competition compared to iOS. Check this post on the Games Brief blog by Rubicon Development's Paul Johnson about porting its Great Little War Game from iOS to Android.
"As usual the haters have it wrong. Very wrong," he writes. "Sales from the first three months have matched the iOS equivalent period very well indeed." Rubicon saw its game featured as part of Google's "10 Billion" promotion where apps were sold for $0.10 on the Android Market, resulting in peak sales of 400 per minute.
"We're on track to have taken around $125,000 by the end of this first sales quarter and that's not too shabby a return in my book," writes Johnson. "If you have an iOS game that's pretty decent and you're wondering about porting to Android, just do it."
Elsewhere, social game developer Gameview has said its Android games make 30% more average revenue per user (ARPU) than the iOS versions.
That's contradicted by another developer, Godzilab, which has said it saw an ARPU three times higher on iOS than Android for its Stardunk game �C yet the company also said the two versions were earning roughly the same due to more people playing on Android.
Elsewhere, apps like Evernote's Skitch (3m downloads in four months) and productivity app Any.Do (500k downloads in 30 days) are showing how free apps can ramp up quickly on Android too, providing a base to try to make money from in-app purchases, advertising and/or subscriptions.
The issues with Android that have put many developers off supporting Google's platform �C piracy, device fragmentation, a perceived unwillingness to pay for apps for example �C have not been solved, but the number of success stories indicating that Android fortune favours the brave are mounting.
It remains to be seen how many developers will take up Google chairman Eric Schmidt's invitation to develop apps for Android first by mid-2012. Some app genres �C notably social games �C are moving faster than others towards a point where developers strive to release apps across iOS and Android, if not simultaneously, at least in quick succession.
Read much of this research, and you're sucked into thoughts of a market dominated by iOS and Android. Yet 2012 may be the year when more developers look beyond this pairing �C and we don't just mean BlackBerry and Windows Phone.
Mobile industry consultant Tomi Ahonen has published a long blog post aggregating data from Netsize, Informa, Google and Ipsos to try to compile credible figures for the number of mobile devices in use globally. It's based on figures from 42 major countries which he says cover 72% of the world's mobile phone users.
The key figures: Ahonen calculates that there are now 745m smartphones in use �C "this is a very solid number" �C out of a total 4.6bn mobile handsets in use. That would mean a 16% penetration rate for smartphones globally.
Ahonen goes on to break the smartphones down by manufacturer and operating system. In the latter case, he estimates that Android and Symbian are neck and neck with 190m in-use smartphones and a 31% market share each, followed by iOS (114m / 17%), BlackBerry (93m / 14%), Windows Mobile (17m / 3%), Samsung's Bada (8m / 1%) and Windows Phone (5m / 1%), with other operating systems accounting for 33m smartphones and a 5% market share.
Wondering why this adds up to 649m rather than 745m? Ahonen explains that these market share figures are based on actual sales rather than estimates, meaning they include the final quarter of 2009 rather than the final quarter of 2011 in his two-year analysis. It's explained fully in the piece.
The point? There are opportunities beyond iOS and Android, depending on what kind of app a developer is making, who they're aiming it at, and where those people are in the world.
Yet guessing which platforms developers will support in 2012 is about much more than in-use handset figures. Developers will be taking their decisions based on how much money they think they can make, set against the likely costs of development and the human resources available to them.
They'll be trying to gauge which platforms may grow sharply in the next year �C for example whether Nokia's belief that teenagers are bored by iPhone and baffled by Android is true �C as well as investigating any inducements being offered by the platform owners to port their apps.
And yes, often they'll be guided by their own predjudices, or those of their investors.
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