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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

#11

Post by caseorganic »

Thanks so much for this.

This is helpful information and something I always wanted to see side-by-side. It's also very nice to see that it seems like in some cases it is worth making an Android port, but that you, even as a Java/.NET developer by profession find it more difficult to create a quality app on Android.

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

#12

Post by smackfu »

switchrodeo720 wrote: post #7

It doesn't look like this is a fair comparison. If you ported your app from IOS to Android, then presumably the IOS version has had the opportunity to gain popularity already, which the Android version has not. I'm not a mobile app dev, but I assume that it takes some time before an app can gain popularity and hit it's sales peak. It may make more sense to compare the first two weeks of IOS sales to the first two wee…

I think it's an annual app, so the iPhone users need to rebuy it each year at the start of football season. So it seems a fair comparison.

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

#14

Post by bignoggins »

seancron wrote: post #6

Any reason you didn't include iPad sales? There are also Android tablets, so unless none of your sales are for Honeycomb users it might not be a fair comparison. I'd also be interested in seeing how it changes when you take into account ad revenue and in-app purchases. Do the numbers stay as close when you add them, or does one platform take the lead?

Because the iPad version is a completely different app at a different price point, so it would skew the results. If I counted iPad/in-app/ad revenue it would nearly triple the iOS numbers.

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

#15

Post by dpcan »

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.

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

#16

Post by bignoggins »

marquis wrote: post #13

There are huge issues buying content on iTunes. Apple doesn't fix it or tell you, or help you get in touch with the developer to work around it.

that may be true but I've never gotten a single customer e-mail complaint regarding this, whereas I get one nearly ever other day on android (where my sales are a small fraction of my total iOS app sales). So the problem appears to be significantly greater on android.

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

#18

Post by bignoggins »

switchrodeo720 wrote: post #7

It doesn't look like this is a fair comparison. If you ported your app from IOS to Android, then presumably the IOS version has had the opportunity to gain popularity already, which the Android version has not. I'm not a mobile app dev, but I assume that it takes some time before an app can gain popularity and hit it's sales peak. It may make more sense to compare the first two weeks of IOS sales to the first two wee…

My app is annual, in that I release a completely new app every year rather than offering free updates. So this is about as close to what you are looking for as it gets. The iOS version was released about a month earlier, but the numbers are not significantly different.

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

#19

Post by bignoggins »

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.
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