Just two per cent of the top 250 publishers in the Apple App Store for iPhone in the US are new to the market, with three per cent for Google Play in the same country, according to the latest report from analytics firm Distimo.
With the catalogues of both stores reaching hundreds of thousands of apps, it was noted that “it’s a very crowded application market”.
These new players represent an “even smaller part of the revenue”, although by this metric Google Play is the more lucrative in percentage terms. Just 0.25 per cent of revenue generated by the iPhone store in the US goes to new apps, compared with 1.2 per cent for Google Play – although in absolute terms, the Apple Store is still likely to generate more cash due to its significantly larger sales.
It was noted that of the top 10 new publishers, a number made their mark through Christmas-related apps – indicating the importance of the holiday sales period on sales.
The newcomers to Google Play published more titles than new players in the App Store, releasing an average of six or two products respectively. It was noted that “a plausible explanation is the review policy of Apple App Store makes it harder for new publishers to release applications”.
New apps have more impact in the top applications selection, reflecting the higher rotation rate of apps in this list. Again for the US market, 17 per cent of the top 300 iPhone apps were new titles, while 12 per cent of the top 300 Android apps were fresh.
Again, “relatively speaking”, new applications in Google Play generated more revenue than new apps in the App Store. Some 18 per cent of total revenue (including in-app purchases) went to new Google Play applications in the US, compared with 12 per cent for the App Store for iPhone.
Of the new titles that reached one million downloads, the US generally accounted for most of the traffic, although there were some notable differences – Naver’s Line Pop generated 87 per cent of its downloads from Japan, for example.
Generating $1 million in revenue has been a tougher task, Distimo noted, with “only a few” titles reaching this milestone in the first one month of availability. The fastest new revenue-generating apps, Angry Birds Star Wars, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Temple Run 2, all come from an existing franchise.
Eight of these fast-earning apps also use a paid download model, of which four also have in-app purchases. Two have in-app purchases only.
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