Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
December 2013
By Christel Schoger, Analyst at Distimo
Publication - Year 2013
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
All data used in this report is directly extracted from Distimo AppIQ. Any statement containing the Year 2013 is referring to data covering January through November 2013, unless otherwise noted.
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Major Findings
During 2013, Google Plays revenue share has been growing at Apples expense. In November 2013, the Apple App Store was still leading though with 63 percent relative to 37 percent for Google Play. The top 10 countries in terms of mobile app revenue from the Apple App Store and Google Play are:
1) United States 2) Japan 3) South Korea 4) United Kingdom 5) China 6) Australia 7) Germany) 8 Canada 9) France 10) Russia
The three countries with the highest market growth in 2013 compared to 2012 are: South Korea, Japan, and China. 2013 showed an increasing trend towards the freemium business model, while paid apps made up a smaller portion of mobile app revenue. Apps were explored more quickly than ever before in 2013. We identified apps that reached over one million downloads in only a couple days after release, e.g. Despicable Me: Minion Rush and Temple Run 2. For some apps, the download volumes from the Amazon Appstore started to compete with download volumes in established app stores like the Apple App Store and Google Play. The most revenue generating app of 2013 was Supercells Clash of Clans, making Supercell the top grossing publisher of 2013 in the Apple App Store. None of newly released apps of 2013 reached a top 10 position in the yearly grossing charts in the Apple App Store. In contrast, four out of the top 10 grossing apps on Google Play were released in 2013. Minecraft Pocket Edition by Mojang was the only paid app in the top grossing charts of the Apple App Store. The majority of top publishers in all three app stores are game developers.
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
United States
Japan
South Korea
United Kingdom
China
Australia
Germany
Canada
France
Russia
United States
China Japan
Australia
iPad
iPhone
Google Play
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Market Growth
Analyzing the market growth over the year provided further interesting insights about the top 10 countries:
759%
280%
245%
125%
90%
89%
81%
77%
69%
64%
South Korea
China
Japan
Russia
Germany
France
United States
Canada
Australia
United Kingdom
This graph is based on a comparison between January through November 2013 relative to 2012, looking at the development of the combined revenue from the Apple App Store and Google Play. The growth rates of revenue in 2013 are displayed for each of the top 10 countries. The countries on the left-hand side: South Korea, China, and Japan, can clearly be identified as the growing mobile markets. South Korea shows the highest growth, increasing its revenue by 759 percent. Australia and the United Kingdom, on the other hand, are more established markets, which already reached a high revenue volume in 2012 and did not increase that much during 2013. Nevertheless, over the whole year of 2013, all markets showed a positive growth contributing to the overall market growth.
Google Play
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
This analysis is based on comparing the revenue generated from the app stores of the following 34 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam. These countries are chosen for this analysis, as revenue is generated for both stores in each country.
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
On a typical day in November 2013, we estimate the global revenues for the top 200 grossing apps in the Apple App Store at over $18M. For Google Play, our estimate is about $12M. In November 2012, these estimates were at $15M for the Apple App Store and only at $3.5M for Google Play. With these insights we conclude for 2013: The Apple App Store is still leading in terms of total revenue. However, during 2013 Google Plays piece of the pie was consistently increasing month over month.
Business Models
After looking at increasing revenue in both stores, the question about the largest revenue source arises. We analyzed the revenue proportions of the different business models and the related revenue proportions over the year 2013. The graphs below show the development of the business model distribution for globally aggregated revenue from apps in the top 200 grossing charts. The proportion of revenue based on in-app purchases increased from 77 percent to 92 percent in the Apple App Store and from 89 percent to 98 percent on Google Play. As the graphs demonstrate, the freemium business model (free apps with in-app purchases) clearly takes the lead in terms of revenue, while the other business models: paid apps with in-app purchases and paid apps without inapp purchases have a significantly smaller revenue share, which is even smaller on Google Play than on iOS. The general trend continuous in 2013: the revenue share from free apps with in-app purchases is clearly increasing on both platforms, the Apple App Store and Google Play.
Paid apps
The data behind these graphs is based on globally aggregated revenues. When looking at specific countries, the user behavior in terms of a preference for different app business models can vary between different regions.
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
For example, when looking at iOS data for the month of November among the top 200 grossing apps in the United States compared to Japan, the difference is also notable, even when looking at the same platform.
Apple App Store - United States
November 2013
4% 4%
1% 1%
92%
98%
Paid apps
The United States is, in this case, representing a trend that is more common among the western markets, where paid apps still make a notable portion in revenue. Japan, in contrast, as an example for the Asian markets, shows that paid apps have a smaller share. The preference toward paid or free content, not only varies in different markets, but also per category. While the freemium model is in general more successful (looking at revenue for the complete market), some categories show a larger revenue share for paid content. The graph below is based on data aggregated over all countries for the month of November 2013 in the Apple App Store, showing the top 10 categories in the order of largest revenue from top to bottom.
All Games Social Networking Newsstand Music Entertainment News Education Books Productivity Navigation 90% 88% 99% 65% 68% 95% 43% 77% 29% 22% 55% 70% 24% 56% 22% 31% 31% 5% 4% 5% 8% 7%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Paid apps
The revenue in the top categories Games and Social Networking is largely generated from free apps with in-app purchases. Categories such as Newsstand and News show an even higher revenue portion from in-app features, as many apps released in these categories are based on subscription models. As about 63 percent of the revenue on iOS* is generated from apps of the Games category, the distribution is much in line with the picture of the whole store. In contrast, categories like Productivity, Navigation, and Education show that a larger revenue share comes from paid apps or paid apps with in-app purchases. In these categories paid content still monetizes well, despite the general trend to the freemium model.
*
For a more detailed view on categories and their related revenue please refer to our Publication - Games: King of the Mobile Ecosystem
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Next to being positioned in the top 10 free apps of 2013 on Google Play, the following apps also have another fact in common: each of them reached more than 100M device installs. Out of these apps, Temple Run 2 is the youngest app, being released in January 2013, but it was still able to catch up in terms of device installs.
In the top performing free apps for the Amazon Appstore, a lot of names are listed, that we saw in the Apple App Store and Google Play as well. This result showcases that in 2013 a lot of the top developers have become successful across multiple app stores. Facebook, Candy Crush Saga, Subway Surfers, and Temple Run 2 are present in the top 10 free charts across all three stores.
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
In line with this fact, we saw an increasing weight of the Amazon Appstore during 2013. When looking at a recently released app, e.g. Wheres My Water? 2, it is interesting to note that the download volumes in the Amazon Appstore are more and more competing with the larger established app stores Google Play, and even the Apple App Store: In November 2013, for example, the download volume in the United States on Amazon was 33 percent for Disneys top app, compared to 67 percent for the Apple App Store.
100%
75%
50%
25%
Nov 13
Downloads Wheres My Water? 2 - United States - Estimated One-Off Downloads Wheres My Water? 2 - United States - Estimated One-Off Downloads
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
The top paid apps of 2013 on Google Play are all apps that have been released prior to 2013. All of these apps were able to continue their success with an increased user base and hence, still achieved top positions in the charts in 2013. The main difference to the Apple App Store is that only the minority of these apps are games. Most apps are released in other categories such as Productivity, Tools, Music & Audio, and Personalization.
The Amazon Appstore, on the other hand, has more in common with the Apple App Store. All top apps in the paid category are Games.
Disneys Wheres my Water? and Mojangs Minecraft Pocket Edition are the clear winners in the paid apps category. In 2013, they were present across all three stores in the yearly top 10.
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
On Google Play, also a few newer apps gained top grossing positions, such as LINE Pokopang, LINE WIND runner, for Kakao, and for Kakao, which were all released in 2013. Next to a few messaging apps in the Social Networking category, Games also made up the majority of apps in the top grossing charts. The Google Play top grossing apps include apps from more diverse regions. In line with the top two countries on Google Play, the LINE Corporation is mainly successful with their messaging and game apps in Japan, while Kakao-based apps from various developers are successful in South Korea. Nevertheless, the western developer King.com took the number one position in the Google Play charts with Candy Crush Saga, which is also successful in Asian markets. After the United States, Japan is the most revenue generating country for Candy Crush Saga on Google Play. This accomplishment makes King.com not only a successful cross-cultural, but also a successful cross-store publisher, showing that next to the Apple App Store, also Google Play has substantial monetizing potential. In the months to come, it will be interesting to see how Supercells Clash of Clans will develop on the Google Play platform, after it achieved the global number one position for the first time in November 2013.
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Note for Plants vs. Zombies by EA Swiss Sarl /Electronic Arts Inc: These apps are analyzed independently from each other, and hence displayed in this overview twice, as these are regionally different apps. For both EA Swiss Sarl and Electronic Arts Inc, Plants vs. Zombies was the most successful app.
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
The top developers listed are, to a large extent, also game developers. Disney, being present as a top publisher on multiple app stores with games as well, is in addition, one example of successful global brands entering the app stores and establishing a mobile presence. The top developers also feature Apple and Google themselves, who have achieved some high ranks with more specific service apps.
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Christel Schoger
Webinar
If you want to know more about these top apps, our data and the opportunities AppIQ enables in terms of reporting, please register for our free webinar on Tuesday, January 7th 2014 at 6:00 PM CET/9:00 AM PST. We would like to invite you to send us your questions related to the topics covered in this publication. We will try to include some answers in the webinar, so please send your questions in advance.
Contact us
For sales inquiries, please contact us at sales@distimo.com or call +31 30 82 00 567 For press inquiries please contact Mindy M. Hull at mindy@mercuryglobalpartners.com or call +31 62 504 7680 (The Netherlands) or +1 415 889 9977 (San Francisco, United States)
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
www.distimo.com
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Disclaimer This work is licensed under Creative Commons License Attribution Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Netherlands. This license is available for download at http:/ /creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/nl/. This license ables you to use, copy, spread, and build upon this work non-commercially, as long as you credit Distimo and license your new creations under the identical terms.
Distimo 2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.