Roughly Drafted
Why it's harder to make money on Android than on Apple's iOS
May 27, 2011: 6:57 AM ETOut of 72,000 paid apps in Google's Android Market, only two have sold more than 500,000 copies
80% of Android paid apps have sold fewer than 100 copies. Source: Distimo
The Utrecht-based analytics company Distimo generated some catchy headlines last month with a report suggesting that Google's (GOOG) Android Market was rapidly catching up to Apple's (AAPL) App Store and might surpass it by July.
What that report didn't mention, as Roughly Drafted's Daniel Eran Dilger pointed out in a pungent analysis entitled "Distimo polishes the Android turd," is that the App Store is generating billions for developers, while hardly anybody is getting rich in the Android Market.
In a new report issued Friday, Distimo looks at why that might be. One obvious factor -- not highlighted in April -- is that there are nearly three times as many paid apps on Apple's App Store (211,369, by Distimo's count) as on Google's (71,801).
What Distimo discovered this time is that, for a variety of reasons, Android generates far fewer runaway hits. The most successful app in the Android Market, with more than 50 million downloads, is a Google freebie: Google Maps. Nothing else comes close.
Among the other findings: (I quote)
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The best analysis money can buy
Daniel Eran Dilger finds anti-Apple bias in Gartner's research
"Looking into its crystal ball, Gartner Group has predicted that Google's Android will become the second largest smartphone platform by 2012," writes Daniel Eran Dilger in the one-man blog he grandly calls Roughly Drafted Magazine. "Problem is, nobody's talking about how terrible Gartner is at predicting things, or that Gartner's 'research' has historically been paid for by special interests."
So begins Dilger's reaction MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Oct 8, 2009 3:55 PM ETPosted in: Android, Apple, BlackBerry, Daniel Eran Dilger, Gartner, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Palm, RIMM, Roughly Drafted, Symbian
