App Store Pays More Money than Play Store
Last week at the annual Google Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) I/O conference, it was revealed that iTunes app store developers take home 4 times the amount Google Play Store developers take. Google Senior Vice- President Sundar Pichai told developers that the search engine giant paid android developers more than $5 billion over the 12 months. However how huge the amount may seem, it is merely half of what Apple is approximated to have paid its iOS developers.
In 2013 alone, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) shared more than $7 billion to app developers, and this year the company is expected to pay $12 billion or more to its developers. This is due to the fact that Apple products have a loyal customer base among the affluent. Thus, its customers spend more on applications.
Google Admits iOS Developers Earns More
Google admitted to its developers that their iOS counterparts earn more; nevertheless, android platform is slowly catching up. As we speak, there are about one billion active android users, while iOS users are slightly less than half of this, in fact 470 million users to be precise.
Apple has monetized its loyal fans better than Google, or perhaps the iOS platform users are much generous and willing to spend more on apps. If this trend is to continue, many app developers will continue finding Apple much attractive.
Despite the fact that android phones have outnumbered iphones in the market, the latter still dominates the U.S. and Canadian market. According to the data by Chitika, iOS 7 devices grossly dominate in two largest North American countries.
Mobile web traffic from iPhones stood at 84.3% in the U.S. and Canada as of February this year. The iPad, which also uses the iOS platform, is responsible for about 79% of the web traffic. This follows that Apple has monopolize the large part of the North American continent. The huge monopoly of the web traffic is partly the reason why iOS developers continue to take home more money than their android counterparts.
Apple is also targeting the Chinese market. Its yet to be released iphones with large screens are in line with the Chinese smartphone market demands. Android phones have enjoyed a good run in China so far because of their large displays which are preferred by the Chinese population. Forrester Research data show that 40% of the android mobile devices sold this year had displays 5-inches or more. By producing large iphones, Apple will be eliminating the one big advantage that android users brag about. More iphone consumers mean more money for Apple, and more demand of iOS apps!
Conclusion
If the big spenders continue with their loyalty to the Apple brand, app store developers are still going to continue to mint more money than Google Play developers. It has been two years and Apple has still kept the distance, the disparity in app sales. Apple has for a long time targeted big spending customers, and this has and will for a long time be its greatest strength. If the trend continues, many play developers are likely to join the app store bandwagon.
