2012 Year In Review

By Gert Jan Spriensma, Analyst at Distimo

Publication - Year 2012

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Publication - Year 2012

me is my na Hello,

A brief introduction
Distimo has a very clear objective: to make the app market transparent. The company was born out of the frustration of a lack of insights into the performance of apps and the manual work needed to track important metrics.
Our goal is to provide the best and most actionable app intelligence for anyone who wants to compete in the app market. Our data-driven team seeks to help developers, brands and financial services companies gain actionable, timely and factual knowledge of whats happening daily in the global app market.

We offer three core services: App Analytics

to track all of your important app data across all major app stores and ad networks.

Conversion Tracking
to measure your full app sales funnel from discovery and campaigns to app launch.

Market Data
to analyze the daily download and revenue volumes of any app in the market.

Founded in 2009, Distimo is a privately held company based in The Netherlands. Follow us on Twitter, read our blog or learn more at www.distimo.com.

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New and noteworthy

A couple of winners emerged, some late entrants showed promise and Microsoft launched a new app store in 2012. This year-end report focuses on the clear winners in 2012: the Apple App Store and Google Play. Android has been long hailed as the winner in terms of device installs, however until last year developers complained about Google Play and the lack of monetization on the platform. Apple, on the other hand, redefined the app store model, and proved to be highly successful in terms of monetization for developers. The large amount of applications (700K) that are available on both platforms decreased the ease of discovery, and thus made it more difficult for developers to become successful. Still, some new publishers managed to become successful and did so extremely rapidly, like Draw Something. This report details how the stores compare, who the clear publisher and application winners of 2012 were, and shows the trends and stats in play to become the success story of 2013.

The major findings are:

Google Play showed tremendous growth during the past four months, with an aggregated growth in daily revenue of 43% across 20 of the largest countries, while the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad grew by 21% in daily revenue in the same period.

Even though the growth in revenues in Google Play in the last four months is close to that of the Apple App Store in 2012, the growth in daily revenues in the Apple App Store was higher than the total daily revenues in Google Play when comparing absolute daily revenue values.

Draw Something, one of the best known apps of 2012, reached 1M users in 9 days, however weve found it is possible to gain 1M users even faster. Naver, one of the most successful Asian publishers, launched five applications at the end of November 2012, and all five quickly became the most popular applications in many Asian countries. We estimated Line Pop, the most popular of the five, generated 1.75M downloads within 72 hours.

Looking at the worldwide download volumes, the app store opportunity is large. On a typical day in November 2012, the revenues in the Apple App Store exceeded $15M USD, while in Google Play the revenues are just below $3.5M USD in 20 of the largest countries in both app stores.

Seven applications were responsible for 10% of the revenues in November 2012 in the Apple App Store for iPhone, which is significantly lower number of applications than in January 2012. Moreover, in the Apple App Store for iPad, six applications were responsible for 10% of the revenues, while in Google Play this figure was four.

The country with the highest tablet download proclivity is Russia, where 46% of all iOS downloads are on the iPad. Other countries with a high proclivity of iPad downloads are The Netherlands and Finland with 38% and 35%, respectively. Japan is the country with the least tablet download proclivity, as only 7% of all iOS downloads are iPad apps. The iPad revenues are already higher than the iPhone revenues in some countries when looking at revenues, e.g. Russia.

The proportion of revenue that derived from in-apps increased from 53% to 69% in 2012. However, in 2012 there were still some publishers who were very successful with a paid-only strategy. Moreover, 35% of the revenue from the top 10 publishers was derived from one-off fees in 2012.
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The App Market Still Amplifying in 2012

There were many success stories in 2012 about applications that managed to became very successful in the matter of a few days and gathered millions of downloads and revenues. On the other hand, there were also reports focusing on the big proportion of applications that had almost no downloads or revenues at all. However, looking at the worldwide daily download and revenue volumes, the opportunity is really huge. The revenues in the Apple App Store are $15M USD on a typical day in November 2012, while in Google Play the daily revenues were just below $3.5M USD. Please note that we only used revenue data for 20 countries* in the Apple App Store and in Google Play, however, the countries we did not include in the year end report are also generally the countries that have lower daily revenues.

United States Still Leads in Terms of Revenues

Combined Revenues in The Apple App Store and Google Play, 20 countries

* Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States
Israel United States

The United States is still the largest market by revenue, followed by Japan, the United Kingdom and Australia. Looking at Google Play only, Japan rivals the United States. And while Japan is the second largest market for iPhone revenues, there are almost no iPad app sales. Another Google Play success example is South Korea, Samsungs hometown, which has low revenues from iPhone and iPad apps, but is the third largest country in terms of revenues in Google Play.

Google Play: Catching Up?

+51%

Google Play showed tremendous growth in the past four months, with an aggregated growth of 43% in daily revenues across all 20 countries. The growth in the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad was less spectacular in the past four months with 21% growth in daily revenues, but looking back at January 2012 the Apple App Store grew an estimated 51% in daily revenues. The iPad daily revenues increased by an estimated 71%, while the iPhone daily revenues increased by an estimated 40%.

+43%
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov

Although the growth of Google Play in the past four months is close to that of the Apple App Store in 2012, it is important to remember the absolute values in the Apple App Store were already much higher. The growth in the Apple App Store was higher than the total daily revenues in Google Play when comparing absolute daily revenue values.

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Publication - Year 2012

Not all countries grew at the same pace. In some markets the daily revenues were already high, while in others the iPhone was not for sale prior to 2012, for example. The table below displays the top five highest growing countries in terms of daily revenue for the Apple App Store and Google Play in 2012 and the last four months, respectively.

Apple App Store for iPad

Russia (+143%) Japan (+112%) Denmark (+111%) Finland (+111%) China (+110%)

Apple App Store for iPhone

Japan (+138%) China (+118%) Russia (+96%) Taiwan (+74%) Sweden (+64%)

Google Play (Aug - Nov 2012)

Korea (+94%) Japan (+60%) France (+46%) United Kingdom (+40%) Russia (+37%)

Large Differences in Tablet Download Proclivity Among Countries

As mentioned previously, revenues for iPad apps in Japan are relatively low compared to iPhone revenues. The same goes for downloads, as demand in some countries is relatively low, while in other countries iPad apps are even more popular than iPhone apps. The country with the highest tablet proclivity is Russia, where 46% of all iOS downloads are on the iPad. Other iPad savvy countries are The Netherlands and Finland with 38% and 35%, respectively. Japan is the country with the least tablet proclivity, as only 7% of all iOS downloads are iPad apps. When looking at revenues, the iPad revenues are already higher than the iPhone revenues in some countries. Although this only depicts the difference between iPhone and iPad downloads, it is a good indicator whether or not the tablet appeals to customers in a particular country. As Android tablet just start to become popular, countries with a high proclivity for iPad use and downloads could very well be the countries to target if you are a publisher aiming to reach the tablet market.

iPad Downloads As Proportion of the Total iOS Downloads Per Country

46% 38% 35% 35% 34% 31% 31% 28% 28% 27% 27% 25% 24% 24% 24% 24% 24% 22% 21% 7%

Successful Publishing
Everybody remembers the success stories of applications that gathered millions of users within a couple of days. Most notably in 2012, Draw Something did it in nine days. At Distimo, we know it is possible to gain one million users much faster. Naver, one of the most successful Asian publishers, launched five applications at the end of November, all of which quickly became the most popular applications in many Asian countries. We estimated Line Pop, the most popular of those five, to have generated 1.75 million downloads within the first three days of its launch. This is remarkable when you stop to consider that it took AOL nine years, Facebook nine months, and Draw Something nine days to reach the one million users milestone. Moreover, Line Pop not only successfully attracted many users; it also generated one million in estimated revenue within the first 12 days.

The Road To 1M Users

9 Years

9 Months

9 Days

3 Days

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The uptake in these types of quick downloads are most common with games, which are the most downloaded and revenue generating types of applications. However, other kinds of applications can generate a lot of downloads as well. The graph below displays the popularity of each category as proportion of the whole store volume.

Downloads & Revenues Per Category

Apple App Store And Google Play Aggregated - Categories With Less Than 2% Excluded

33% 8% 7% 5% 4% 4% 4% 4% 3% 3% 3% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 1%

Downloads Revenues

In-Apps Popularity Continues to Grow

Proportion of Revenue from In-app Purchases (Apple App Store)
Pricing is one of the most difficult decisions to make for app developers. We have seen the average price of apps decline over the past few years, which is most likely due to increasing competition. Moreover, one of the main trends over the past years was to monetize via in-app purchases instead of an upfront fee. This trend continued in 2012 as the proportion of revenue generated by applications with in-apps increased. In spite of this trend, some publishers decided differently and achieved a successful outcome. One of the main success stories of 2012 that monetizes solely via one-off fees is the application, Minecraft Pocket Edition. Aside from Minecraft, other publishers such
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov

69% 53%

as Electronic Arts, Apple and Gameloft still receive a large chunk of the revenues from one-off fees. 35% of the revenue was generated by one-off fees among the top 10 most generating publishers on iOS.

Navigation Applications Are Most Expensive

Average Selling Prices in Each Category
$2.85 $8.04 $5.74 $3.29 $2.78 $3.68

$11.56

$6.81 $3.11 $3.11 $3.49 $3.61 $2.93

The average selling price in both the Apple App Store for iPad and iPhone is quite high for Navigation, Business and Productivity applications. Generally speaking, customers seem to be willing to pay higher prices in the Apple App Store for iPad. The average selling price is down from $3.42 by 8% compared to January 2012 in the Apple App Store for iPad. The average price was $1.86 in January 2012 in the Apple App Store for iPhone, which increased by 16% over the course of 2012.
$2.00

Store AVG

$7.25

$3.62 $2.72 $1.62 $1.80 $2.57 $2.26

$3.29 $1.86

$3.37 $3.17 $1.70

Store AVG

Average prices are in general higher in Google Play than in the Apple App Store for iPhone.

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The Winners Take It All?

Number of Applications Responsible for 10% of the Free Downloads and Revenues January 2012
30 20 11
6 7

Downloads Revenues

Digital markets where strong rankings effects are in place like in app stores (due to the focus on rankings), are known to drive a lot of downloads to a few large players.
Seven applications were responsible for 10% of the revenues in November 2012 in the Apple App Store for iPhone. Compared to January 2012, this is a significantly lower number of applications, when 11 applications

November 2012
31 31 22

accounted for 10% of the revenues. The pie is shared with a larger number of applications in terms of free downloads, 10% of free downloads were generated by 31 apps. Moreover, in the Apple App Store for iPad

and Google Play these figures are lower, i.e., the concentration of downloads and revenues towards a few top applications is lower.

NA

Top 10 Most Grossing Cross-Store Publishers

Among 20 of the Largest Countries (Apple App Store & Google Play)
Available In
Both Both Both Apple Both Both Both Both Both Apple

App publisher
Electronic Arts Zynga Gameloft Apple GREE, Inc. Playtika LTD TeamLava Rovio Entertainment Ltd Backflip Studios Supercell

Total Apps (iPad / iPhone / Play)

126/266/62 31/44/20 105/198/65 6/7/0 11/96/122 4/3/1 26/26/22 14/17/13 31/36/10 2/2/0

Popular app example

Tetris Words With Friends UNO iMovie Monster Quest Slotomania Bubble Mania Bad Piggies DragonVale Clash of Clans

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Publication - Year 2012

Our 2012 year-end publication showcases a couple of success stories, but many other publishers and applications that were also very successful over the past year were not discussed. Among the top 10 highest grossing cross-store publishers on the previous page, nine of the publishers are gaming companies. Only Apple is in the top 10 while only publishing in one app store. Another single app store publishing publisher in this list is Supercell. Supercell is a relatively new gaming company that has only published two games to date: Clash of Clans and Hayday, which are specifically aimed at the tablet market. Their two applications have dominated the top grossing lists for quite some time, and Supercell is among the top 10 highest grossing cross-store publishers in 2012. In contrast, Electronic Arts is available in both app stores with many applications. For each specific store on the next two pages the top publishers and top applications by downloads is given. If you need more specific information about how popular certain applications and publishers are, we have paid reports available that contain the top 300 most popular applications and publishers per region including their full downloads and revenues in 2012.

Recap
We dove into the current state of the Apple App Store and Google Play in our 2012 Year in Review report, and looked at how both stores developed over the past year. We also highlighted the success stories of a couple of new publishers that became incredibly successful in 2012 including, Naver, Supercell and Minecraft. Naver, the publisher of the messaging app Line amongst others, launched one application Line Pop that was estimated to have generated one million downloads in just one day. Google Play is just starting to rival the Apple App Store in a few countries on a worldwide scale, even though it is still losing in terms of daily revenues. Although Google Play shows promise and had much higher growth figures than the Apple App Store, the total daily revenue in Google Play was still lower than the absolute growth in the Apple App Store. Lastly, this publication details the 2012 winners, with a cross-store publisher list that includes known names like Apple, Electronic Arts and Rovio, but also contains relatively new publishers like Supercell. A top 10 publisher and top 10 applications list for both the Apple App Store and Google Play is available.

Now Available (from 4,899):

the full year report on 2012

Trend analyses with download & revenue estimations used in this publication. Top Apps & Pubs with download & revenue estimations covering full year 2012. Basically, all the intel you need to compete in the app store market delivered in one comprehensive excel report.
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Top 10 Publishers
By Downloads In Apple App Store In 2012
App publisher
Apple Gameloft Google, Inc. Disney Electronic Arts Out Fit 7 Ltd. Rovio Entertainment Ltd Tencent Technology Chillingo Ltd Zynga

Total apps Avg. price (iPad / iPhone) paid apps

6/7 105/198 12/23 144/131 126/266 31/33 14/17 21/64 212/347 31/44 $7.43 $5.32 $3.18 $3.21 $1.75 $2.10 $1.84 $2.75

Popular app example

GarageBand Modern Combat 4 YouTube Cars 2 The Simpsons Talking Tom Cat Angry Birds: Star Wars WeChat Parking Mania Respawnables

Top 10 Applications
By Downloads In Apple App Store In 2012
Instagram Temple Run Find My iPhone Facebook iBooks 1 2 3 4 5 Draw Something Free iTunes U YouTube Podcasts Twitter 6 7 8 9 10

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Top 10 Publishers
By Downloads* In Google Play In 2012
App publisher
Google, Inc. Facebook Rovio Mobile Ltd. Go Dev Team Adobe Systems Kakoa YouTube Runner Games NHN Corporation Skype

Total apps
60 2 13 135 31 4 1 12 119 4

Avg. price paid apps

$2.29 $10.00 $1.28 -

Popular app example

Google Translate Facebook Messenger Angry Birds Star Wars GO SMS Pro Adobe Reader KakaoStory YouTube Basketball Shoot - Naver Skype

Top 10 Applications
By Downloads* In Google Play In 2012
Street View Facebook Voice Search Maps Gmail 1 2 3 4 5 YouTube Adobe Flash Player Skype Whatsapp Messenger KakoaTalk 6 7 8 9 10

* Downloads include pre-installs

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Visit our webinar on the publication

2012 Year In Review

on thursday the 3rd of January @ 05.00PM CET (08.00AM PST)

Register here!

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Publication - Year 2012

Track daily downloads and revenues of any app with Distimo AppIQ
Distimo AppIQ allows users to:
Track and compare app downloads and competitor app downloads: Analyze an apps market share and compare download figures versus a competitors in one chart. The chart shows the daily downloads and can also be aggregated per week or month. Events such as price changes, featured listings and version updates are also included, and allow the user to analyze the influence of each event on downloads. Analyze competing app revenues including those from in-app purchases: View daily revenues from competing apps side-by-side with the their own app and get extensive insight into the revenue generation of different business models, revenue per country, and platform. Identify the most popular and upcoming new apps: The Leaderboard provides the daily rankings of all applications, and can be viewed by app store, country, category, device, and free/paid/gross. All of the major app stores are supported, and for iOS and Android, the daily volumes per individual app are also provided. AppIQ users see the daily downloads and revenue from in-app purchases and one-off fees. Developers can also use the Leaderboard to see how many downloads are needed to achieve a certain ranking on any given day.

Learn more about AppIQ at www.distimo.com/app-analytics/appiq.

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