Yes, The iOS App Store Still Makes Developers More Money

If App Annie’s report released today detailing downloads and the revenue situation for developers on iOS and Android sounds familiar, that’s because it is.
The company had found in April that even though the Android app store was growing at a faster rate, the iOS App Store led in terms of monetization – earning around 2.6 times more in app revenue in the previous quarter than Google Play. Today’s number? 2.3x.

In other words, same stuff, different day.

This news comes at a time when Android app downloads have now topped iOS app downloads by 10 percent. With Android now the world’s leading smartphone platform by market share, it’s interesting to see how far it still has to go in order to take the lead in terms of revenue.

Today’s report also noted that several emerging markets stood out this past quarter – Brazil, Russia India. Brazil climbed two spots in the list of top countries on Google Play in Q2 2013 to join Russia and India in the top 5.

Meanwhile, Russia climbed three spots on the iOS App Store in Q2 2013 (up 6 spots since Q2 last year) now making it the only other country besides the U.S. in the top 5 countries by downloads inboth the iOS App Store (#5) and Google Play (#4).

The U.S. and China remain the top two markets by downloads, and accounted for around 40 percent of downloads in Q2 2013.

China’s impact on the market was also felt during the quarter, with two of its largest Internet companies, Tencent and Baidu, joining Apple and Google in the top four publishers by non-game downloads on iOS. Tencent arrived in this list this May, and Baidu in June.

On Android, the top publishers were Facebook, Google, Whatsapp and GO Launcher in the top four. That was Whatsapp’s highest ranking of the year, in fact. The app has shown serious momentum of late, which has included bringing its iOS business model more in line with the subscription-based model used on other platforms like Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone.

Games, of course, still account for the majority share of the revenue for both stores – accounting for 80 percent of revenue on Google Play vs around 75 percent on the iOS App Store. But a non-game app, Japan’s LINE, also made a strong showing, with two other LINE apps (a comic book app and a fortune-telling app) reaching the top ten in June.

Video apps grew in popularity in June, too, with Vine climbing up three spots to reach the #1 non-game app rank in the iOS App Store by downloads. YouTube was then #2, Snapchat #3, and Instagram, which more recently added video support, reached #5. Vine did particularly well in the U.K. in June (see below).

Data source: TC (By Sarah Perez)