iPhone vs Android app sales: numbers from an indie developer
I've been a full time indie iPhone developer for about 9 months. I've recently ported my 2nd highest selling iPhone app to Android. Here is a comparison for the first 2 weeks of sales. If other iOS developers are out there that are thinking of porting to android, I hope this may be of help.
To keep things fair I'm only comparing one version of my paid iphone app to its android equivalent (Fantasy Football Monster '11). This does not include any ad revenue, in app purchases or iPad sales.
Date Android iPhone
Aug 25, 2011 $177.67 $420
Aug 24, 2011 $261.30 $382
Aug 23, 2011 $386.68 $386
Aug 22, 2011 $447.26 $425
Aug 21, 2011 $422.18 $585
Aug 20, 2011 $280.06 $403
Aug 19, 2011 $211.09 $352
Aug 18, 2011 $194.37 $388
Aug 17, 2011 $357.39 $342
Aug 16, 2011 $463.99 $330
Aug 15, 2011 $384.55 $407
Aug 14, 2011 $376.20 $483
Aug 13, 2011 $263.34 $502
Aug 12, 2011 $209.00 $508
Total $4428.08 $5914
Per Day $316.29 $422.43
So, overall the android version of my app makes about 75% of its iPhone equivalent. This is significantly better than I expected.
One more data point. The android app is currently about 250ish overall top paid, and the iPhone version is 350ish. Take from that what you will.
Some quick observations about android from an iOS developer's perspective:
1) I think developing quality apps is easier on iOS. I'm actually a Java/.NET developer by profession so I should naturally be biased toward Android. But once you get past the initial learning curve, I think that Cocoa Touch APIs get you 90% of the way there, whereas Android APIs get you about 30% of the way there. That is to say, if you want a lot of the nice UI touches you're used to on the iphone, you'll have to spend much more effort getting there on Android. The main advantage I feel Android has is memory management, but the reference counting method that Objective-C uses is second nature once you are familiar with the fundamentals.
2) Android gives you REAL TIME sales analysis. This is pretty incredible. Yes you can somewhat simulate this on iPhone using 3rd party analytics, but being able to see the moment someone bought your app just brings my obsession with checking sales and stats to another level. You also get your daily reports much sooner (about 12:30AM PST as opposed to 5-6AM PST).
3) Android market screws up orders quite a bit. In fact, almost 20% of all orders are declined or cancelled due to some android market error. After checking forums, it seems like this is not unusual. Now, I don't know if this means I have 20% lost sales, but still disturbing nonetheless. In android's defense, apple actually never gives you this level of detail. To my knowledge, you don't know if users can't buy your app due to an app store error. But judging from the fact that we get e-mails about this issue every other day on android and I've never gotten a single e-mail about this in the past 15 months I've been on the app store is very telling. Google has GOT to fix this. Developers lose, customers lose, and google loses.
In conclusion, I feel like the Android Market has really come into its own. The common wisdom that android owners do not pay for apps is demonstrably false. They may not pay as much per user for apps as iPhone owners, but the enormous marketshare Android commands is just too much to ignore.
I'll try to address any questions or comments in a timely manner, but I'm currently in Europe so please forgive me I don't get to all of them. Thanks for reading.
94 comments
[ 125 ms ] story [ 847 ms ] threadI'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?
I also have another iPhone app that sells much better but it came out recently so I haven't had a chance to port to iPad or Android yet.
It may make more sense to compare the first two weeks of IOS sales to the first two weeks of Android sales, even though they'll be different dates. Or, maybe that is what you're comparing and I just missed something.
Both the iOS and Android markets have grown in the past year or so, so comparing sales at different points in time is even less valid, in my opinion.
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.
Agreed, this problem needs to be solved.
I haven't had a single bad payment experience with iOS.
1000+ downloads of a 2.99 app in the first couple weeks is pretty impressive, well done
Edit: Ah, nevermind, I see you already answered this in your reply to utnick.
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.
Also, I just went to download BridgeBasher. Your game wants crazy permissions. Why should a game have to update my SD card contents, need my location, AND have access to device calls and identity?
Number 3 is an example of Android permissions being insufficiently granular. It's nice that you know when installing apps that they can get a unique identifier (which until iOS5, apps always had access to on iOS. It's randomised or something on iOS5), but its also a nuisance that it requires giving other permissions too.
Number 2 and number 3 are arguments for being able to refuse apps permissions like you can do with iOS location settings.
I might be able to get higher eCPMs if I had it enabled, but between GPS taking more battery (for fine location information) and people being hesitant to download apps that track their location, I'd rather have the higher distribution and happier users.
http://www.appannie.com/bridgebasher/ranking/history/#view=g...
and this is on the android platoform?
(Give or take a little inaccuracy as I'm just using the lowest possible figures from what Android Market gives me)
Also, if I search Bridge Builder, (which is pretty much the name of the genre) their app shows up and not yours, which may hurt your visibility. Maybe try fit that into your description somewhere?
Also, be sure you HAVE a paid version with no ads available to buy -- and don't forget to cross promote it using house ads. I have about a 1.4% conversion rate to paid (at $2), which accounts for more income than the free version so far.
Granted I'm still not getting rich on my Android version, but I'm trying to get a publisher for it (ONE clause left in the contract still to iron out), which should help a lot.
Contact me offline and I'll let you know what happens -- there's contact info anti-spamified on here: http://rechargegames.com/page/about-quickcharge
If a customer just refunds, then the order just says "Cancelled" and the details of the order say that the card was successfully authorized.
It's those people that WANT to give you their money but get stopped because of a Payment Decline or Google Cancel that are ridiculous.
Android users are willing to pay for quality apps, and the lack there-of has made your statement somewhat more true in the beginning of Android, but not so much anymore.
One of our games was making very similar numbers for about 4 months, then a competitor, a talented college kid, decided he would make a game really similar to ours and put it out there for free. Not even with ads.
Over the next 4 months, we saw sales drop to about 1/5 of what we were making in our good months. He has out-ranked us and doesn't seem to have any interest in making much money tho he as since put in an ad that shows up upon a game-over.
I'm worried that you just put a nail in your own coffin, and are about a month or 2 from realizing it... on Android at least.
I wish you good luck. You need to step up your game now and make sure you are on the very cutting edge. If there's even 1 feature that your users want that you haven't done yet, that's the one feature that gets the competition an edge-in on your app.
From my experience most successful entrepreneurs don't worry about competitors that much. They just focus on building the absolute best product they can.