'Freemium' iPhone Apps Growing as Successful Business Model
GigaOM takes a look at so-called "freemium" iPhone apps: applications that are free to download and offer basic functionality but generate revenue through the use of In App Purchase content. According to the report, freemium apps are becoming increasing popular with developers, who are finding it a viable business model, and the number of such apps generating sufficient revenue to rank among the top-grossing App Store titles is increasing.
A look at the top-grossing iPhone apps today finds 34 of the top 100 apps are free, but make their money through in-app purchases of mostly virtual currencies as well as other premium features. Remco van den Elzen, CEO of analytics firm Distimo, said he believes in-app purchases now represent about 30 percent of all iPhone App Store revenue. "We're seeing more developers implement more in app-purchases especially with games," he said. "Freemium Apps are also picking up significantly. A lot of developers realize it's a successful model."
Another analytics firm tracking such data revealed that in January only two freemium iPhone apps ranked in the top 50 grossing apps, a number which rose to 10 by the end of October and stands at over 20 today.
The striking success of freemium iPhone apps comes even as their prevalence in the App Store remains low, with only about 1.34% of iPhone apps using the model during the third quarter of this year.
Interestingly, the freemium business model has yet to catch on with iPad applications, as none of the top 200 grossing iPad apps utilize the strategy on a platform where higher purchase prices for applications are the norm.
As the report notes, iPhone developers are learning how to offer a solid app experience for their free versions while also pushing attractive upgrade options via In App Purchase, finding that the strategy can be more lucrative than offering ads in their applications and attract a more loyal base of customers.
Popular Stories
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Best Buy is discounting a collection of M3 MacBook Pro computers today, this time focusing on the 14-inch version of the laptop. Every deal in this sale requires you to have a My Best Buy Plus or Total membership, although non-members can still get solid second-best prices on these MacBook Pro models. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a...
There are widespread reports of Apple users being locked out of their Apple ID overnight for no apparent reason, requiring a password reset before they can log in again. Users say the sudden inexplicable Apple ID sign-out is occurring across multiple devices. When they attempt to sign in again they are locked out of their account and asked to reset their password in order to regain access. ...
Apple used to regularly increase the base memory of its Macs up until 2011, the same year Tim Cook was appointed CEO, charts posted on Mastodon by David Schaub show. Earlier this year, Schaub generated two charts: One showing the base memory capacities of Apple's all-in-one Macs from 1984 onwards, and a second depicting Apple's consumer laptop base RAM from 1999 onwards. Both charts were...
