Android App/Game Sales Charts

[Mrstickball]

Hi,

I tried E-mailing the staff of Phandroid about this, and didn't get a response about posting it on the site. However, I thought that it may be of interest to Android fans/developers looking for some viable statistics. The sales data are estimates, and we'd like feedback from developers on accuracy via our methodology.

If you do have an app on the Android market place, we'd love to see how your stats compare to what we have in our data base - from what we've seen, most of our stats are within +/- 10% of actuals, but we're always looking for feedback!


_________________
Android Gaming Sees Gains in January and Feburary, as the Android Market breaks 250 million downloads between apps and gaming.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 8, 2010Gaming on the riseAs per the upcoming report for January and February released by Forecasting and Analyzing Digital Entertainment, LLC (FADE), the Android marketplace jumped 50% in terms of gaming revenue in the months of January and February compared to the breakneck pace set in November and December.


Gaming revenue among all paid titles was estimated at a total of $900,000 in January and February alone. Compared to 2009, this is a great start to 2010, as gaming revenue in November and December totaled in at just over $600,000. The market has grown leaps and bounds so far in 2010, adding 1,200 new gaming titles in just 2 months.


Despite being out for almost a year, Robo Defense has maintained its stranglehold on the #1 position, it has maintained the top ranking since we began tracking Android gaming 7 months ago. Robo Defense saw an estimated 24,000 downloads at $2.99. Yongzh\'s video game emulators control rankings #2 through #4 with SNESoid, NESoid, and GameBoid with a total of 30,000 downloads between all 3 versions. Finally, Fishing simulator Fishin 2 Go reels in the #5 spot at 16,000 downloads at the new $2.25 price point. Formerly, has seen price increases from $1.50 in early December, to its current price of $2.25.

Android Users Still Not Buying Apps


Given the recent insights into handset proliferation, FADE LLC believes that the average Android user is spending just 6.1 cents on gaming in the month of February, and $0.50 among all applications. Comparatively, iPhone users are spending an estimated $1.00 per user on video gaming applications per month and approximately $5.00 among all applications. Although the average revenue per user is up from 4-5 cents during most of 2009, it is still facing weak revenue compared to other handsets.


As per the report, FADE LLC does not believe that the fault lies on the quality, or depth of applications, but on 4 major factors:

• Payment UI
• Android 1.5 in use on ~30% of available handsets
• Limited number of paid countries
• Inability to download applications to SD cards

On the opposite end of the spectrum, free applications are doing remarkably well, as 98.9% of all applications downloaded are free apps. We estimate that over 250,000,000 applications have been downloaded (289,000,000 to be exact). Such numbers are robust for an operating system that has approximately 8 million users, pointing to an average attach ratio of 35 applications per user.

Top 10 games (data from January 4th 2010 through February 28th, 2010) sorted by revenue

1. Robo Defense by Lupis Labs - 24,000 downloads ($2.99)
2. SNesoid by yongzh - 11,000 downloads ($3.98)
3. Nesoid by yongzh - 10,000 downloads ($3.49)
   
4. Gameboid by yongzh - 9,000 downloads ($3.99)
   
5. Fishin 2 Go (FULL) by CyxB - 16,000 downloads ($2.25)
   
6. Homerun Battle 3D by Com2uS - 6,000 downloads ($4.99)
   
7. UNO by Gameloft - 9,000 downloads ($2.99)
   
8. Armored Strike by Requiem Software - 6,000 downloads ($3.99)
   
9. Space Physics by Camel Games - 8,000 downloads ($2.99)
   
10. Armageddon Squadron by Polarbit AB - 4,000 downloads ($4.06 due to exchange rate)

About Forecasting and Analyzing Digital Entertainment, LLC



FADE is a strategic market research and consulting firm focused on electronic entertainment and the emerging download and mobile game markets. With very little information currently available in these markets, FADE allows smaller developers to investigate these new potential sources of revenue and make informed business decisions moving forward. Currently, FADE produces monthly and annual reports for Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, WiiWare & Virtual Console, and mobile markets including iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry. For more information, please visit http://www.fadellc.com.
_____________________


Oh, and as a bonus - non-game app estimates (top 5):

1. Exchange by TouchDown Key by NitroDesk, Inc - 10,500 downloads ($19.99)
2. DocumentsToGo Full Version Key by DataViz, Inc - 17,000 downloads ($9.99)
3. Better Keyboard by Better Android - 35,800 downloads ($2.99)
4. Open Home by Better Android - 22,000 downloads ($3.99)
5. CoPilot Live Navigation by ALK Technologies, LTD - 2,400 downloads ($34.90 USD)

Enjoy!

 

[iAndroiid]

if you download a paid application can you uninstall it within the first day or couple hours and not be charged? wondering how this works.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[Mrstickball]

Correct. You can remove the app and not be charged for it. However, that is for Google Checkout, and I am unsure if that is also the case with carrier billing.

 

[iAndroiid]

Correct. You can remove the app and not be charged for it. However, that is for Google Checkout, and I am unsure if that is also the case with carrier billing.

really? you sure? so if i download the app i can just delete it after an hour or less?

 

[JediJesus]

yes. You have 24 hours to get a refund the first time you bought it. If you buy the same game again you can't get a refund. You get the refund after uninstalling the app. I actually think you don't get charged until the 24 hour period is up.

And to stay on topic I would like to say thanks to the OP. Very good stats. And until google lets us install on the SD card we will always have mostly small apps. I don't think google thought that part through.

 

[Mrstickball]

yes. You have 24 hours to get a refund the first time you bought it. If you buy the same game again you can't get a refund. You get the refund after uninstalling the app. I actually think you don't get charged until the 24 hour period is up.

And to stay on topic I would like to say thanks to the OP. Very good stats. And until google lets us install on the SD card we will always have mostly small apps. I don't think google thought that part through.

Its a bad system - the 24hr rebate. From my understanding, developers are losing 10-30% of their revenue from people that use the refund.

Even worse, my brother has a rooted G1 - he told me how to download the paid app, and with a few quick moves, keep the application after getting the refund. Now, I'm not saying he actually does that, but it was demonstrated how to do that. That is incredibly disappointing that such things can go on in the Android market.

I do agree we'll have mostly small apps until Google allows SD card installations. The iPhone has a major advantage there, as we do track iPhone sales data - the general trend is that bigger games = more revenue.

 

[Onemoa]

I dont understand the part about SD card. All these newer phones have A LOT of space for apps. I know when the first android phone came out (The G1) I had it on pre order and got it before anyone else did on this island. and that had very limited space like 40mb or so for apps, it was the only letdown of that phone and it really was not that big of a letdown since at the time there where very limited apps and they where never any bigger then 2 or 3 mb. But now there are apps as big as 120mb out there. about a month ago, I got the Samsung Vibrant and it changed the way I thought about Android it is so much bigger, deeper and better and I didnt think it could be.. and with the Samsung Vibrant you have 2 GB (Pretty much allows you to download every good app/game on the market x2 and the Vibrant is just a nice phone Very Solid yet very light wight and thin. It is one of the better looking phones out there maybe not the most original look but the most practical out of the 4 Galaxy S phones.. anyone nuff of my ranting about how much I love my new phone..

I think a lot of iphone owners dont tweak and hack at there phones as much as us Android users do and that alone brings on a lot of people that would rather hack at games/apps and get them for free then pay for them that is just one of the downsides of Android being such a good OS. I for one pay for all of my apps in order to support the devs and I would rather not have ads ( I cant stand em) but yeah imho that is one of the reasons you dont see as much people paying for games/apps and the funny thing is we have so much more apps and games on the market then whatever the iphone uses for there contect I guess they use Itunes or whatever.. more bloatware packed onto there fail phone.. sorry I just really hate all the dropped calls that come along with the iphone 4.. ok back to the topic a lot of people dont think about the devs I mean yeah some games are priced crazy high and I can understand people not wanting to pay for them but any good game under 5 bucks is not bad at all. right now I have 5 games apps I have on my phone and they are all paid not the demos.. System Panel (app), Flight Control(game), Armored Strike Online (My favorite game) Robo Defense (game) and Speed Forge 3D(game). I do have some other widgets and such but they do not have a paid version if they did I would pay. and anything with adds that is free that does not have a paid version, I tend to not download since I would just rather pay and not deal with ads that will slow down my phone and eat more battery life.

I would just like to add in for the people with older phones I guess I can see why you might want SD apps and I do believe there is a mod for that but does not work with some apps/games.. The best thing you could do if you are having this problem is pick up a new phone any of the Galaxy S Models will be just fine for you