Mac App Store Dominated by Paid Apps, Top Apps' Revenue at 50% of Top iPad Apps'
App Store analytics firm Distimo today issued a new report comparing the performance of Apple's two-month old Mac App Store to the more mature iPad and iPhone App Store segments, revealing that the Mac App Store is dominated by paid apps that also carry a higher average price than paid iPad apps.
Looking at the 300 most popular apps in each of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac App Stores, Distimo found a clear pattern of popularity, with iPhone and iPod touch apps being downloaded more than five times as often as iPad apps, which themselves are downloaded more than five times as often as Mac apps. But the large disparities in downloads are partially offset by differences in average pricing that see a similar pattern in reverse, although to a lesser degree. Consequently, the differences between each platform are reduced from 5x to 2x when revenue is considered instead of downloads.
The top applications on iPhone generate 2.1 times the revenue of top applications on the iPad. The top paid applications on the iPad in turn generate 2.0 times the revenue of top paid applications in the Mac App Store.
The differences in the ratio of downloads and the ratio of revenue is captured in the average selling price of top 300 applications in the different stores: $1.57 on iPhone, $4.19 on iPad and $11.21 in the Mac App Store.
Based on Distimo's numbers, Apple's Mac App Store had about 2,225 applications available in the United States at the end of February when the survey was conducted. Our own sister site AppShopper currently shows that number approaching 3,000.
Top Rated Comments
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16 months ago
And a lot of time will pass untill all the junk is filtered out. App to unzip zip archives for 9 bucks? Stop joking people.
16 months ago
Developers have to make money some how. Charging more for an app you can run on a mac rather than an iOS is only right in my opinion.
16 months ago
And a lot of time will pass untill all the junk is filtered out. App to unzip zip archives for 9 bucks? Stop joking people.
My problem with the App store is its like a swap meet. You really have to search to find the good stuff. I wish all the crap apps were indeed filtered out. On a side note I have never purchased a paid app. Just free stuff.
16 months ago
I still haven't bought anything from the Mac app store. Don't see the point. :confused:
16 months ago
If Apple does what they are rumored - to have info on all apps purchased via the Mac App Store and allow you to log into a Mac and have all your apps available for re-download and use temporarily, that would be a big reason to buy via Mac App Store instead of directly from the programmers. You'd have your profile stored at Apple and use it to run programs at college etc or at hotel workstation, Kinko's type place, etc.
16 months ago
Developers have to make money some how. Charging more for an app you can run on a mac rather than an iOS is only right in my opinion.
Sure they do, but if they can get more volume by having lower prices,
maybe they can make at least as much that way.
The only way in which I see it's "right" for software for one
platform to cost more than another is where the likely volume is
lower or the development cost is higher; the second being probably
less significant, because volume is variable while development costs
are fixed.
In other words, total revenue will usually be highest with a very low
price, regardless of development costs. That doesn't mean everything
would be 99 cents; for something obviously exceptional and delivering
great function and user experience, people would be willing to pay more
and still feel like they were getting a good value.
So the "race to the bottom" for application prices can be good for the
application developer that provides a quality product, and among paid
apps, the poor ones with better alternatives should fade fast.
16 months ago
Hear hear...Im glad when devs get some deserved $$$. That doest mean im gonna pay for some of the uninspiring junk they have on there *caugh Angry birds desktop *caugh
16 months ago
My problem with the App store is its like a swap meet. You really have to search to find the good stuff. I wish all the crap apps were indeed filtered out. On a side note I have never purchased a paid app. Just free stuff.
If you think the App Store is bad, you should try Google Marketplace. It's an order-of-magnitude worse. I personally don't find navigating the App Store (iOS or OSX) bad at all.
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