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iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer

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Re: iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer

#22

Post by bignoggins »

dageshi wrote: post #10

Very useful, thank you, could you keep us updated perhaps? It would be interesting to see how this matures as your app becomes more established in the android marketplace (or if this makes any difference at all).

Sure, if there is enough interest I can do a follow up post. You may have to pester me about it on twitter or something b/c I'm not really one to put myself out there on the internet. This is my first major contribution to HN, I'm a long time lurker.

Re: iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer

#23

Post by avgarrison »

Thanks for posting your figures! What did you do to advertise the new app on Android? I have recently ported one of my games from iOS to Android and even though it is free on Android, it is really having trouble getting traction, and this is even after sending an e-mail to 40k people and several hundred dollars in Admob advertising.

Edit: Ah, nevermind, I see you already answered this in your reply to utnick.

Re: iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer

#25

Post by psychotik »

dpcan wrote: post #15

I agree, the bloodbath of "Payment Declined" orders in our order inbox is downright infuriating. This is especially painful when customers email us saying that they purchase apps all the time on Android and their card didn't work only when they tried to order our games. Agreed, this problem needs to be solved.

I develop for Android and iOS too, and Android Market is terrible with declined purchases and "failed to deliver" issues. What's worse is that there is no good way to get information about what's wrong and who's affected. In-app purchases also have terrible bugs on Android - bugs like this http://code.google.com/p/marketbilling/issues/detail?id=14 open for months cause payments to just 'disappear'. The only thing worse than Android Market bugs is Android Market support. There is no way to get Google's attention, and emails to support come back with useless, auto-reply messages. I spend at least 30 minutes a day fiddling with refunds and fixing things up for users who contact us about problems. It is infuriating - I'm embarrassed for Google.

I haven't had a single bad payment experience with iOS.

Re: iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer

#26

Post by snorkel »

bignoggins wrote: post #19
utnick wrote: post #17

Interesting, what kind of marketing are you doing for the app? How are people hearing about it, just market searches? 1000+ downloads of a 2.99 app in the first couple weeks is pretty impressive, well done

My app has been fairly popular on the iphone app store for over a year, and customers were demanding an android port. The only marketing I need to do at this point is just notify my existing customers that a new version is out. Everything after that is purely organic.

Great info. Was this app featured prominently in either store at any time, or just listed rank and file with all the other apps?

Re: iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer

#27

Post by bignoggins »

snorkel wrote: post #26
bignoggins wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My app has been fairly popular on the iphone app store for over a year, and customers were demanding an android port. The only marketing I need to do at this point is just notify my existing customers that a new version is out. Everything after that is purely organic.

Great info. Was this app featured prominently in either store at any time, or just listed rank and file with all the other apps?

I was never featured on either store. Everything came from organic downloads and word of mouth.

Re: iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer

#28

Post by avgarrison »

It may be worthwhile for me to chime in here with my own stats, which are far less impressive than bignoggins. I recently ported my iOS app, BridgeBasher, to Android. I took a different route though. Since I had no users on Android, I thought the best thing to do would be to create an ad-based version on Android, mostly because I've heard a lot of people say that Android users are less likely to pay for apps. I decided on using Mobclix for advertising, and here are my stats:

Date - Android / iOS

 8/7/2011 - $2.16 / $142.00

 8/8/2011 - $1.68 / $97.00

 8/9/2011 - $1.15 / $84.00

 8/10/2011 - $1.82 / $76.00

 8/11/2011 - $0.98 / $78.00

 8/12/2011 - $0.57 / $103.00

 8/13/2011 - $0.59 / $88.00

 8/14/2011 - $0.72 / $102.00

 8/15/2011 - $0.43 / $74.00

 8/16/2011 - $0.44 / $75.00

 8/17/2011 - $0.18 / $88.00

Total - $10.54 / $1,007.00

This is obviously comparing apples to oranges, since the iOS version is paid ($0.99) and the Android version is ad revenue only, however given bignoggins success with a paid app on Android, I'm thinking I have made a mistake going the free route on Android.

Re: iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer

#29

Post by baconner »

Another android dev with (much) lower volume here. Curious how you know about errors driving that 20% number. Is there a report somewhere with this detail or is it just inferred from customer emails? The only failures I ever see come through are declined credit cards or the regular cancellations from users who used the 15min refund window.
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