Distimo said that since the launch of Apple’s App Store for the iPhone (and subsequent iPad) there has been a shift in the balance of regional power, with the US losing some ground in terms of significance during the last two years.

During June 2012, approximately 26 percent of free downloads from the top 200 most popular app category came from the US, compared with 38 percent in June 2010, as various Asian markets increased in importance. Last month, the rest of the top 10 most important markets were made up by China, Japan, UK, Germany, France, Canada, Italy, Australia and South Korea.

Distimo reiterated that “localisation is of the utmost importance for successful global app development”.

It noted that while some apps have enough appeal to be successful without full localisation, “in most countries the top 200 most popular and highest grossing applications are mainly populated by localised applications”.

Increasing competition
Distimo also said that increased competition in Apple’s App Store has seen the average number of downloads per user across the top 200 most popular free apps in the US decreasing to 8.4 in July 2012 from 15.4 at its peak during June 2010.

The number of free downloads grew during the last two years, to 16.8 million daily from 7.7 million. This pace of growth was not matched by volumes for paid apps, however: the volume among the top 200 paid apps increased by 13 percent, while the average selling price declined by 16 percent, leading to overall lower revenue.

Shifting monetisation methods
While customers are less keen on paying for apps, Distimo said they are “eager” to make in-app purchases after they have tried a product. This has led to an increase in revenue for the “top grossing” apps, despite the drop-off in paid-for sales.

In June 2010, 7 percent of the revenue was attributable to free apps with in-app purchases, with an additional 22 percent derived from paid apps with in-app purchases. In June 2012, this had shifted to 68 percent and 16 percent respectively.

Over the same period, the proportion of revenue generated by paid apps decreased to 16 percent from 71 percent.

Games have the most in-app purchase options available from within an app. In total, around 21 percent of all free games have in-app purchases, but when looking at the top 300 titles, this increases to 77 percent.

However, the category with the highest in-app adoption rate is Newsstand. Here, 74 percent of free titles support in-app purchases, increasing to 91 percent of the top 300.

App Store evolution
During the four years, the store has seen a number of milestones. This includes the introduction of in-app purchases in June 2009, which shifted the monetisation method for many developers; the expansion of the app store into a large number of new countries; and the introduction of an app catalogue for the iPad.

With just 500 apps available at launch in July 2008, Distimo noted that the App Store currently contains more than 650,000 applications. 567,000 are available for the iPhone and 236,000 are available for the iPad, indicating that around 153,000 titles (23 percent of the total) are “universal” – the same app package runs on both devices.

Distimo said that over the last few years many applications have been removed from the store. In total, almost one million unique titles have been submitted, meaning 334,000 have been subsequently removed either by Apple or the publisher.