Mobile game developer TinyCo said that Android apps offer better monetisation potential than generally thought, with the company also describing Amazon’s Appstore for Android as a “gold mine.”

The company found that the average revenue per user (ARPU) for its Tiny Village Android game – built using its Griffin cross-platform game engine – was 65 percent of the same game on Apple’s App Store. This figure rose to 82 percent when just smartphones were taken into account (eg. removing iPads and Android tablets from the comparison).

Recent surveys from app analytics company Flurry reported that Google Play’s ARPU is just 23 percent of the App Store.

TinyCo noted that on average, individual users pay similar amounts whether using iOS or Android – the key differentiator being the percentage of people who pay. It expects Google Play to catch up as more users input their credit card information for the first time.

Meanwhile, TinyCo said that ARPU for Amazon’s App Store for Android is nearly double that of Apple’s App Store. Amazon’s Kindle tablet outperformed the iPad’s ARPU by 43 percent, a figure that is expected to increase now that Amazon has removed its US$20 in-app purchasing cap.