Chicago (IL) -With nearly 27,000 applications now available on Apple's App Store, the number of iPhone applications has now exceeded what it took Windows Mobile nine years to amass. With an addressable market of at least 23 million active devices, the iPhone platform has become too big for most developers to ignore. In this article, Chris takes an in-depth look at the structure of software offerings on the App Store, and analyzes the latest stats to put it all in perspective against other mobile platforms for TG Daily readers.
According to the website 148Apps,
which derived its name from the maximum number of applications one can
install on a total of
nine iPhone home screens, Apple hit the new 25,000 App Store
applications milestone sometime during this past Thursday night (March 5/6, 2009). To put
that figure into perspective, Global Intelligence Alliance estimated (and
Microsoft corroborated) that there were no more than 20,000 applications for
the nine year old Windows Mobile platform as of February 25 of this
year.
The last official figure from Apple, provided in mid-January, called for 500 million downloads and 15,000 applications. Since then, 12,000 more programs have been added in only 48 days -- an average of 250 new arrivals daily. At this rate, App Store should sport an astounding 50,000 applications before the next-generation iPhone is unveiled at Apple's upcoming developers conference.
I know what you're thinking: 500 apps, 5,000 apps, 15,000 apps, 25,000 apps -- who cares, right? It's just a mobile phone after all. While we respect the opinions of those who have been irritated with the constant rave about mobile application stores and sales numbers, in reality we're witnessing a remarkable phenomenon unlike anything we've seen in an entire software industry so far.
The stellar App Store
success took even Steve Jobs by surprise, prompting the CEO to note
that he has never seen anything like this in his entire career.
Approval delays that spoiled the App Store's launch last July also showed
that Apple executives clearly didn't estimate such a high interest in
the iPhone development. It will turn out o be a $1 billion per year market for Apple sometime in 2010.
Drilling the App Store
According
to the 148Apps stats, which are valid as of today, the App Store currently
carries a total of 26,370 applications, of which approximately one
quarter (6.237, or 23.65%) are free, while the remaining three quarters
(20.133, or 75.35%) are fee apps. The largest portion are games, one
fifth (20.47%), with half of the top 10 paid apps being gaming titles. According to the February ComScore survey,
iPhone users are nine times more likely to download games than other apps:
32.4% iPhone owners have downloaded at least one game in February,
compared with the average 3.8% on other platforms. Entertainment,
books, utilities and education software makes up 13.69%, 9,64%, 8.73%
and 7.21% of all content respectively. Combined with games, these five
application categories contribute to 60 percent of all App Store
content.
APP STORE CONTENT BY CATEGORY
Games are big business in the App Store, contributing one fifth of all content. Games, along with entertainment, books, utilities and education software make up 60 percent of the apps found in Apple's App Store.
Source: 148Apps
Paid applications
If we drill only paid applications,
the average price of each paid program is $2.78, while the total worth of all paid
applications in the store stands at $73,315.67 (were every application's cost added together), over half of all paid applications (10,671 or 53%) cost just 99 cents
while two thirds (15,765 or 78.30%) cost up to $2.99. Programs that
cost $1.99, $2.99, $3.99 and $4.99 make up 16.75%, 8.55%, 3.22% and
6.84% respectively of all paid applications available in the store. Another interesting bit of data: There area a total of 24 applications costing more
than $100 (0.12%), while 959 of them (4.76%) sell between $10 and $100.
APP STORE CONTENT BY PRICE
All paid applications in the App Store are worth nearly $75,000. Nearly 25 percent is free software, while over half of the remaining paid applications cost 99 cents, the price that Apple recommended to developers as the "sweet spot."
Source: 148Apps
Read on the next page: Big market, Rival stores, App Store appeal to bedroom programmer, Conclusion