iPhone App Store Numbers Reveal Large Revenue Opportunities

[gmon750]

I hear the floodgates straining...

Must be the sound of all the weekend coder-wannabes thinking this is the next undiscovered country of easy-money. Soon enough, one will have to scour through hundreds (thousands??) of poorly-written, half-completed craplets to find that one gem. This is just the beginning.

When people right now are asking what programming language is used, we're in trouble.

 

[n30]

Must be the sound of all the weekend coder-wannabes thinking this is the next undiscovered country of easy-money. Soon enough, one will have to scour through hundreds (thousands??) of poorly-written, half-completed craplets to find that one gem. This is just the beginning.

When people right now are asking what programming language is used, we're in trouble.

..

next thing will be a story which discovers that sudden demand of iphone app developers and hundreds of job-listing on craigslist..

 

[MalcolmJID]

Apple have got the timing for this just right.

First off, there's all the people snapping up this brand new App Store, seeing what's on offer...then you'll have another wave of people who have taken advantage of the Back To School offer and got a free iPod Touch with a Mac purchase, who will also buy apps....after that, who knows. I'm sure it'll keep growing and growing!

 

[darkpaw]

To all those guys thinking about writing an app for the App Store, do it! I learnt Obj-C by looking through the example code Apple supplies via the SDK download. I've written a couple of games already and am just waiting for Apple to okay them for release on the store.

First is Colony, a strategy game with 30 levels and nice graphics, and the second is Squares, a simple 1- or 2-player puzzle game. Both games can be resumed if you get a phone call in the middle of the game.

Colony took about 2 months of hard work to finish (which includes the time taken to learn Obj-C), and costs £1.79.

Squares took 2 days as it's based on the Colony code - why reinvent a menu system if you've just written one that works? Squares is free.

I'm currently developing a third game using the accelerometer, which will either be free or a paid app.

I doubt I'll get anywhere near the figures this developer has reported, but I'm hopeful!

EDIT: Squares has had 70,000 downloads, and it's still free. Colony hasn't had as many downloads, but I am well in profit now.

 

[MisterK]

not a great indicator, but...

Knowing this isn't a good indicator because it's a free game, I'll share anyway. I work at a web design and advergame company on Canada. My company was interested in making non-advertising titles for the iPhone. They just didn't know how much until me and a buddy from work made Spinner Prologue in a weekend. I did the graphics on a Friday night and he programmed the engine and levels on Saturday and Sunday. We don't have any numbers from the first couple weeks when we were in the top 25 downloads, but we are now getting about 5000 downloads a day. I realize charging even $1 would have cut our numbers in half at least. Still, there is some money to be had here. Very rough extrapolation leads us to believe we've had over 300000 downloads

 

[marksman]

Its all about costs...I really dont care how much revenue these people are bringing in.

I have no clue as to how much something like creating a crossword puzzle app cost. For apple, management has said the app store is not a profit making project...its just to break even and sell more iphones and touches.

For app developers...yes there will be winners..but for someone to start a whole company with future success based just on apps...i dont think they will be able to do that by selling 2.99 iphone apps. I just cant see it. I see it more or less for the big boys (sega) to start a iphone segment within the company, devote resources..hope to break even...and just be in the iphone space for future happenings.

yes, you can have one guy build a great app for under 50,000, and make a million, but to start whole companies around that....i cant see it yet (yet being the key word).

The economics sound good. Depends on what you are trying to do. The part-time crossword puzzle developer probably has almost no costs associated with development. Those kinds of results could turn her into a full time developer, creating more programs and making more money. Essentially growing a company on the back of an app store.

That is likely how you will see non-established companies become bigger. Ones that seed with a chunk of money will likely need applications that sell for more than a few dollars. It all depends though. If you can start a house and have 10 apps out there after a year, let's say, and they sell on average for $4.00 a piece, and you are selling 1000 total apps a day, that is 4,000 a day in revenue or 120k a month or 1.44 million a year. Certainly enough to run a small company or business.

The real interesting thing is when the iPhone has a base of 20 million and someone comes along with a killer app or game that they can sell for $20 a head, and they get 500,000 people to buy it. Sure apple will appreciate their 3 million dollar chunk, but the developers will be sitting on 7 million dollars, and I don't think we are going to see any 7 figure development budget for iPhone exclusive apps for a long time. Yet we will likely see 7 figure revenues for apps probably withint 24-36 months.

 

[marksman]

Well, if you want to write an iPhone app, your mileage may vary.

My $2.99 puzzle app Subway Shuffle sold 28 units three days ago, and it is among the highest rated apps on the store. But it has zero visibility, because it is not listed among Apple's favorites, best of puzzles, etc.

However, that evening Apple finally posted the free, "lite" version of Subway Shuffle (8 days after I submitted it). The next day I sold 44 SS (9000+ free downloads); yesterday I sold 66 SS (7500+ free downloads).

Well, I like the trend, anyway.

Kudos to all you small time developers. I always felt you had the most to gain from the App Store and how it was designed. I hope that bores out to be true. It will be awesome if it becomes a fertile ground for developing new programming talent because you guys and gals can focus on your apps and not on websites, advertising, marketing and sales.

 

[marksman]

That's what people said about the iTunes Music Store when it first launched... That the high sales figures early on were due to people being curious, and once everyone tried it, demand would dwindle. Oh, and that the Apple zealots were the ones buying all the music, but the general public wants more choices. Etc.

I predict the exact opposite of what you predict. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. iPhone and iPod touch sales will increase exponentially over the next year, and app sales will go right along with them. Obviously not every app will be a winner, but a well designed app that's entertaining or serves a need should be able to find an audience and generate some income for it's developer.

Lots of people have not paid for any apps yet. I know several. I have only paid for one so far, yet many are worthwhile. I am just taking my time though, yet I know I surely will end up spending 100s of dollars a year on iPhone apps.

I suspect most people are nowhere close to their budget for iPhone apps at this point.

 

[GregInAZ]

Lots of people have not paid for any apps yet. I know several. I have only paid for one so far, yet many are worthwhile. I am just taking my time though, yet I know I surely will end up spending 100s of dollars a year on iPhone apps.

Buying games is popular among my friends. I actually bought a game after seeing it on my friends phone (Apple's Texas Hold'em game). I've also bought other apps and games I thought I would use frequently (OneTap Movies, Blackjack 21 by MobileAge, and Crash Bandcoot Nitro Kart).

Developers who've had an app in the app store since launch must have raked in some money, but that definitely will die down. I actually wonder what percentage of iPhone owners actually still visit the store frequently.

 

[bob_hearn]

Kudos to all you small time developers. I always felt you had the most to gain from the App Store and how it was designed. I hope that bores out to be true. It will be awesome if it becomes a fertile ground for developing new programming talent because you guys and gals can focus on your apps and not on websites, advertising, marketing and sales.

Heh. Well, I co-wrote ClarisWorks; I wouldn't really consider myself a small-time developer, or new programming talent. However, now that I'm in academia, this is certainly a sideline activity, so OK, small-time in that sense. And yes, it is really cool, in principle, to have Apple handle all the messy details for you.

But my point, which everybody seems to have missed, is that only a small percentage of the apps on the App Store are seeing any significant revenue. If Apple doesn't highlight you somewhere on the store, you're invisible. Consider that the average review rating for Subway Shuffle is identical to that for Dizzy Bee, the #16 paid app, also $2.99. I'll bet their sales are 100x mine. Not that it's not a cool game; it is. But it's also highlighted prominently on the store. How many people are going to wade through all 300+ (and growing rapidly) games to find mine? Or yours, if you're writing one now?

What really bugs me, I guess, is that a lot of what's highlighted seems to be crap, at least based on the reviews. Well, it's still early days; we'll see what happens.

Edit: BTW, top-rated apps are listed here:

http://medialets.net/app-store-metrics/?view=rating_average&range=21600

 

[na1577]

Must be the sound of all the weekend coder-wannabes thinking this is the next undiscovered country of easy-money. Soon enough, one will have to scour through hundreds (thousands??) of poorly-written, half-completed craplets to find that one gem. This is just the beginning.

When people right now are asking what programming language is used, we're in trouble.

Sadly, the App Store is already full of poorly-written/useless applications. Why do people insist on building dozens of novelty applications and then charging $1.99 for it? Now we'll get hundreds more alongside hundreds of broken apps with hideous interfaces. (Didn't Apple include an interface builder in the SDK? Why can't people use that instead of mimicking it with their own ugly graphics?)

It's sad that all the great applications that people put their hard work into, are buried in a sea of apps that were made in one night.

 

[DiamondMac]

Lots of people have not paid for any apps yet. I know several. I have only paid for one so far, yet many are worthwhile. I am just taking my time though, yet I know I surely will end up spending 100s of dollars a year on iPhone apps.

I suspect most people are nowhere close to their budget for iPhone apps at this point.

It was to be expected that some change would occur in pricing and I think we will see many apps drop in price in the next few months which will really spike sales.

I am sure some of the best will stay at their price AND newer/updated apps that really are good will be at the top price wise but some apps have no business whatsoever being as highly priced as they are