Contrary to popular belief, apps in the Google Play Store are making money. App Annie just released a report ahead of Google I/O that goes in depth on the Play Store’s massive app growth in the past twelve months. The report measures from Q1 2013 to Q1 2014. Year-over-year revenue has grown 2.4 times from what it was this time last year. It’s been a good year for Android developers, something that Google is sure to mention during tomorrow’s keynote in San Francisco.
App Annie is an independent analyst firm that develops business intelligence tools and marketing reports for a broad range of companies. Google is one of their clients, but Google didn’t sponsor this report. The company says that Google now has over “well over” 1 million apps in the Google Play Store. The number of apps in the Play Store grew by approximately one-third from July 2013 to April 2014. The largest revenue growth came from games with in-app purchases and freemium apps that offered in-app purchases to unlock additional features. Apple’s iOS App Store still makes more money for devs, but the Play Store is creeping up fast.
App Annie is predicting an ever expanding revenue opportunity for developers that are creating Android apps and posting them in the Play Store. Quarterly app revenue more than doubled from Q1 2013 to the end of Q1 2014. A really cool finding is that revenue growth is growing faster than downloads are, meaning that devs are making more money than users are downloading apps. The Google Play Store is starting to pay off.
Games make up 90% of Google Play app revenue. Google’s focus on gaming is in the right place. Game downloads make up just 40% of total downloads, but the make almost all of the money generated by Play Store apps. This is the most profitable sector of Play Store apps, and it’s still growing. Downloads are still growing as well. The US is still the top download market, with Brazil, Russia, South Korea, and India rounding out the top five countries by downloads. Japan is leading in revenue, however, with the US, South Korea, Germany, and the UK following closely. This matches what Joe Braidwood from SwiftKey told us on the Android Headlines Show a few weeks ago.
You can hit the source link for the full report. It’s a good time to be an Android app developer.