Android outshines iOs for app download

Google's Android has been outstripping Apple's iOS for device sales for some time now, but the belief persists among developers that they're still much more likely to make money from iPhone and iPad apps.

The obvious conclusion to draw from a new report released by analytics firm App Annie is that they're right. A more nuanced reading, however, would conclude that there are riches to be found on both platforms. Mainly if you're making games.

The headline figures from the report: Android's Google Play store had 10% more app downloads than iOS' App Store in the second quarter of 2012, but the App Store generated 2.3x more revenues than Google Play.

There's some mathematical fun to be had with these figures. Apple's store reached 40bn downloads on 7 January 2013, then 50bn on 16 May, so it was doing around 2.5bn downloads a month at that point.

If that pace continued, it indicates 7.5bn App Store downloads in the second quarter, which if App Annie's estimates are correct, means around 8.25bn downloads for Google Play.

(Bear in mind throughout this article that we're just comparing the App Store to Google Play. Android as a platform has numerous other app stores, from Amazon's Appstore to sundry Chinese portals, so the real size of the Android market is larger.)

How about revenues? Apple chief executive Tim Cook told analysts on 12 February that his company had paid out $8bn to iOS developers, then announced at WWDC on 10 June that the figure had grown to $10bn.

That's $500m of payouts a month, and thus around $715m when you add Apple's 30% cut back in. Which hints at App Store revenues of $2.1bn-ish for Q2, which by App Annie's estimates would mean Google Play revenues of around $913m for the quarter.

Rough calculations based on the estimates of an analytics company, yes. But my first reaction is to focus less on Apple versus Google, and more on the $3bn-a-quarter apps market across iOS and Android.


/The Guardian/