Tag: Platform selection

Categories
Business

Revenue Haves and Have Nots

Revenu Distribution by Platform

While not all developers are in it for the money, most would like their apps to provide an income and the majority of those struggle to earn revenues that will sustain further development. We defined $500 per app per month as a reasonable global “poverty line”, in some countries this is very low while in others it’s a very good income. It’s also worth noting that many developers have multiple apps in the market so it doesn’t represent total income. As we’ve highlighted previously, the revenue distribution on the app stores is highly skewed toward the top and this is a major issue for the health of developer ecosystems going forward. Some developers may feel that the level of competition on Android and iOS is too high and they are thus tempted to try one of the smaller marketplaces in search of revenues. Our survey says that this is likely to be a mistake, there is indeed a wide variation in revenue distribution by platform, but the smaller markets have an even higher proportion of developers below the poverty line. The reduced competition is more than offset by the smaller user base at present.

Developer Economics 2013 - Revenue distribution by platform

Around 18% of 3,460 respondents in the Developer Economics 2013 survey indicated that they are not interested in making money from apps. Nevertheless, out of the vast majority of developers that are in it for the money, 67% are not making enough to sustain them or their business, i.e. they are below the “app poverty line” of $500 per app per month. For the majority of developers, app development is not financially rewarding.

Overall, less than 1 in 5 Blackberry developers make more than $500 per app-month. The situation is almost as challenging on Windows Phone where just 19% of developers generate more than $500 per app-month, with 61% below the poverty line. The findings of our survey are somewhat better for Android and iOS although these platforms too, are far from a developer paradise: 55% of iOS and 54% of Android developers are below the poverty line. Excluding developers that are not interested in profit, 62% of iOS developers and 67% of Android developers are not making more than $500 per month per app.

HTML seems a surprise here with just 45% of HTML developers under the poverty line, far lower than any other platform. However, there are fundamental differences between HTML and native platforms which are responsible for the differences observed here: developers using HTML for web development have access to a much larger user base comprising desktop and mobile users, irrespective of platform. Among HTML developers, subscription-based revenue models are much more popular than on native platforms pointing to established online content or service businesses that have expanded on to mobile.

[doritos_report location=’DE13 Article – Revenue Distribution’]

Categories
Business

How Many Users Is Realistic?

Users

One of the most common mistakes developers make when planning the business case for a new app is dramatically overestimating the number of users they will be able to attract, particularly for their first app. The typical argument goes something like this: “My app will be compatible with 400 million devices, if I can reach just 1% of those, that’s 4 million users”. The trap here is that 1% sounds like a very conservative fraction of the installed base to target but in reality it is incredibly high. Of the 664 respondents in our latest survey who integrate user analytics and provided us with their information about the active user base for their most popular app, only 6% had over 500,000 users. The nature of store charts and limited promotional space means that those who break the half million user barrier are quite likely to gain many, many more users than that, however, what’s a realistic figure for everyone else?

One of the more interesting findings we published was that, excluding those with more than 500,000 users, the mean average active user base for iOS developers was 70,000 users vs. 51,000 users on average for Android. The median user base, is 27,500 users for iOS and 15,500 for Android. The percentage difference between means is much smaller than that between medians, suggesting that the distribution of active user bases in general is worth further investigation.

As can be seen from the chart above, 200,000 – 500,000 users is the least common user base size, despite being twice as large an interval as the 50,000 – 200,000 option immediately below it. This suggests that there is a threshold level somewhere near 200,000 users, such that if you break that level you’re likely to “get noticed” and end up with significantly more users. There’s a similar bump near the bottom end of the scale where 501 – 2,000 users is more commonly reported than 2,001 – 5,000 users. This is likely to reflect the difference between apps which are not (effectively) marketed and those that are.

In addition to the platform differences noted above, there are also interesting differences in user base size by revenue model and app category. For example, apps using advertising as a revenue model (and therefore presumably free downloads) are more likely to gain over 50,000 users than other models, whilst freemium shows a very similar distribution to paid downloads. The games category is incredibly competitive and developers there are less likely to have more than 50,000 users, whilst developers in the music and video category had the highest probability of breaking both the 50,000 and 500,000 user barriers. The combinations of revenue models and categories are almost endless but the chart above has dynamic filters so you can explore the opportunities in your own app category. Please let us know about anything interesting you find in the comments below.

Categories
News and Resources

Tablets go mainstream, TV apps still niche

Targeting different screens

In our latest developer survey we asked developers about the different screens they target. The results show smartphones are the most popular target, whilst tablets are catching up fast. PCs are most commonly targeted by web developers while TVs are still a niche app market for all developers.

TV development

The majority (86%) of 3,460 developers in our survey develop on smartphones, while a large share of them also develop on tablets, led by iOS developers (76%) indicating the attractiveness of the iPad as a development and monetisation platform. Despite the rise in Android tablet share during 2012, we did not observe a significant increase in the share of Android developers targeting tablets (64% vs. 62% in our Q1 2012 survey) although we believe this is likely to change in the near future.

HTML developers take a more platform-agnostic approach, as they develop across smartphones, tablets and PCs almost equally, according to our survey, a testament to the use of HTML as cross-screen app development technology. At the same time, HTML limitations, such as lack of support for native APIs, tooling and device optimizations, prevent it from becoming a swiss-army knife for cross-platform development.

TV development remains niche, at the same levels reported in Developer Economics 2012, as the hype cycle around the “Smart TV” experience is yet at a very early stage. This seems in line with findings from research firm NPD, who reports that only 15% of HD TVs are connected to the internet (directly or via a set-top box), limiting their appeal to app developers. Additionally, only a small fraction of those connected TVs use apps for anything other than streaming video or music services. There is a much faster growing trend for the TV screen to be used via smartphone or tablet apps “throwing” content to it.
[doritos_report location=’DE13 Article – Targeting Screens’]

Categories
Languages

HTML5 vs Native – What are the tradeoffs?

HTML5 vs Native

In our latest developer survey we asked developers who use or plan to adopt HTML5 why they do so and also what the technology needs to compete with native alternatives. The results show a tradeoff of increased portability and lower development cost against capability, in the form of reduced API access and a poorer development environment. In this scenario, the key to success with web technologies is taking advantage of their strengths in areas where their weaknesses are less of a handicap.

Developer Economics 2013 - HTML5 trades off native optimisation for portability and cost

HTML5 is becoming a viable alternative to native development across a number of app categories. We found that HTML developers mainly focus on specific app categories such as Business & Productivity (42% of HTML developers), Enterprise (32%) and Media apps (28%). On the other hand, Games are not a common category among HTML developers (12%).

We asked developers that use or are planning to use HTML about the reasons for platform selection. The majority indicated code portability as the main incentive for using HTML5. Low cost development is the second driving force for HTML5 adoption, highlighted by 51% of developers. HTML is still an “extension platform” in that only 26% of developers who use it consider it their main platform. We asked developers that use, have used or are planning to use HTML what they think HTML5 needs to compete with native platforms. Access to native APIs is a top challenge with 35% of developers indicating this as a critical success factor. HTML5 will always be a step behind in support for native APIs, given that cross platform tools and browser vendors will always have to implement support for a new API after it is released to developers by the platform vendor. In addition, the HTML5 development experience is subpar, with developers indicating that a better development environment (34%) and better debugging support (22%) are needed. More importantly, optimised HTML5 devices were not seen as important as the native API access or dev environment. This leads us to conclude that HTML proponents such as Facebook, Mozilla and Google should focus on cross platform tools and development environments on at least equal levels as they focus on full platform efforts like Facebook Platform, Firefox OS and Chrome OS.

[doritos_report location=’DE13 Article – HTML5 vs Native’]

Categories
Business Platforms

Multi-Platform Developers Are Better Off

Multi-platform developers generate higher revenues

Our latest survey shows a concentration of developer attention around the iOS/Android duopoly. Given the reach and revenues available on the two leading platforms compared to the competition, it’s unlikely that developers will find significant success without targeting one or both of them. However, our survey data also shows that developers should not limit themselves to those two platforms. There is a strong correlation between average revenue and the number of platforms targeted.

Developer Economics 2013 - Multi-platform developers generate higher revenues

74% of developers use two or more platforms concurrently. At the same time, developer platform choices are now narrowing. On average mobile developers use 2.6 mobile platforms in our latest research, compared to 2.7 in 2012 and 3.2 in our 2011 research. The Android-iOS duopoly in smartphone sales is gradually creating a concentration of developers around these two platforms: 80% of respondents in our sample develop for Android, iOS or both, making them the baseline in any platform mix. Developers that do not develop for one of these two platforms generate, on average, half the revenue of those developers that do, leaving little doubt as to the concentration of power within these two major ecosystems.

In our Developer Economics 2013 survey of over 3,400 developers we found that 49% of developers use just one or two mobile platforms concurrently and 75% use up to three mobile platforms. The number of platforms developers use depends to some extent on which is their lead platform. In mobile development, loyalty to one platform is not something that pays off. Our research shows that the revenues are higher when using more platforms. For example, an iOS developer porting an app on Android is likely to experience some growth in revenue. At the same time, for developers working on four or more platforms, higher revenues are probably the result of extending an already successful app to more platforms. Obviously, this is not something that all developers can afford to do; it is a strategy more suited to large publishers or commissioned developer teams that are large enough to support a number of platforms.
[doritos_report location=’DE13 Article – Mulit-Platform’]

Categories
Business

PhoneGap and Appcelerator lead developer mindshare across tens of CPTs

Cross-platform tools (CPTs) address real challenges for developers. Cross-platform tools allow developers to create applications for multiple platforms – usually mobile, but increasingly tablets or TV screens – from almost the same codebase or from within the same design tool. CPTs reduce the cost of platform fragmentation and allow developers to target new platforms at a small incremental cost. More importantly, cross-platform tools allow software companies targeting multiple platforms to reuse developer skills, share codebases, synchronise releases and reduce support costs.

CPTs can be used to develop native, hybrid and web apps and come in several technology flavours: JavaScript frameworks, App factories, Web-to-native wrappers, Runtimes and Source code translators. There are over 100 CPTs that we identified in our Cross Platform Tools 2012 report.

Developers most often use several CPTs; on average CPT users will use 1.91 CPTs, confirming the lack of maturity and niche nature of cross platform tools much like we observed in our CPT survey a year ago. Moreover, we found that one in four developers will use more than three cross platform tools. The lack of a one-size-fits-all and immaturity in the CPT landscape is what is stalling cross platform tools from shifting the balance of power in the iOS / Android duopoly towards alternative platforms.

Cross platform tools are most popular for developers focusing on HTML development, with 38% of of them using CPTs for development. CPTs and particularly JavaScript frameworks and Web-to-native wrappers, provide a relatively smooth transition to mobile apps for web developers: in our Cross-Platform Developer Tools 2012 report we found that 60% of developers using CPTs have over 5 years experience in web development. Usage of CPTs is popular among iOS developers, while usage among Windows Phone developers is much lower, presumably due to historical lack of support for the iOS platform from CPT vendors and Microsoft’s financial incentives for the creation of native apps.

DE13-18-01

PhoneGap tops CPT rankings, used by 34% of developers, followed by Appcelerator and AdobeAir with 21% and 19% developer mindshare respectively. With over 100+ cross platform tools available, the choice for developers can be a challenge. Choosing between CPT technologies is not always straightforward (i.e. whether to go for a web-to-native wrapper or a JavaScript framework). Moreover, developers need to try out a cross-platform tool to see if it aligns with their needs in terms of performance, learning curve, access to native APIs or look & feel. It’s never a black or white decision.

The most important selection criterion for CPTs is their availability across platforms. Due to their deep platform integration, CPT tools support iOS/Android platforms first, and others secondly. Beyond cross-platform availability, 38% of developers using CPTs select their tools based on development speed and 33% based on the learning curve. Since CPTs aim to expedite and facilitate development across platforms, they should provide a clear advantage over native platforms when it comes to speed and ease of development to justify their use. Amidst differentiating features for CPTs are access to native APIs, performance optimisation and the ability to reproduce native UI elements on each platform.

[doritos_report location=’DE13 Article – CPT’]

Which CPTs are other developers using?


[toggle title=”Important things to know about this interactive graph”]

  • All the filters in the graph refer to survey questions in which respondents could select multiple answers. This means that there is no direct link between the filter and the use of the tool. For example, filtering on “Android” means that the respondents develop Android apps. It doesn’t imply that they use the tools for their Android apps specifically, or even that the tool supports the Android platform. Use filters as a guideline only.
  • Keep an eye on the sample size. If the sample size is low, the graph doesn’t offer strong conclusions about the popularity of different tools. Use your good judgment when making decisions.[/toggle]

Find the best CPT for you!

[sectors slugs=’cross-platform-tools,app-factories,hybrid’]

Categories
Community

Developer Economics 2013 Survey: iOS vs Android shoot-out

iOS is the best platform for generating revenue,
Android provides a better development environment

Developer Economics 2013 - Android vs iOS shoot-out
We asked developers to pick the top platform, among all platforms they have used or are planning to use, on a number of different aspects of mobile development such as discovery, learning curve and monetisation. We then compared how iOS and Android fare against each other, based on the opinions of developers using both platforms.

The outcome is a tie when it comes to user base, with developers’ opinions divided between the two platforms. However, iOS was ranked higher on 4 out of the six remaining categories, with a clear advantage on app discovery (50% iOS vs. 23% Android) and revenue potential (66% iOS vs. 12% Android). The perception that iOS provides better monetisation opportunities is well engrained with developers and is backed by Developer Economics 2013 survey data. App discovery has developed into a problem for both platforms given the size of their app stores, which now well exceed 700,000 apps. However, despite some initial complaints about the new curation model on App Store, the developer verdict is quite clear on app discovery, which goes to iOS. iOS also leads, but with a smaller margin on development environment and documentation & support.

Android has a clear advantage on development cost (32% Android vs. 14% iOS) and a small lead on the learning curve ( 26% Android vs. 20% iOS). However the total score for the two platforms on the latter two aspects was lower than 50% indicating that most developers that use both Android and iOS believe that neither is best in these areas. In fact 24% of developers among those using Android and iOS indicated that HTML is the best platform in terms of learning curve while 7% indicated that its Windows Phone.

For most developers, the platform perceptions boil down to a decision about which platform to prioritise, i.e. where to invest more resources and which of the two platforms to develop for first. Several other factors may come into play when making a decision on the “lead platform”, such as prior experience or local demographics, but it is fair to say that iOS comes out as the winner in developer perceptions. This is consistent with our figures on lead platforms: among developers using iOS and Android, iOS is the lead platform for 42% of developers, while Android is the lead platform for 31% of developers.

[doritos_report location=’DE13 Article – iOS vs Android shoot-out’]

Categories
Platforms

Windows Phone: buy it and they will come

47% of developers want to adopt Windows Phone,
poor consumer adoption is holding them back

Intentshare-Jan2013

Microsoft’s Windows 8 & Phone 8 strategy brings a unified Metro interface to all devices and enables significant code sharing between apps across PCs, tablets and smartphones. However these synergies have yet to pay off and Windows Phone is facing a bootstrapping issue despite Microsoft’s multi-billion-dollar investment in the platform. Lack of developer interest is not the issue here, as highlighted by the high levels of Intentshare. Developers seem to be on standby, waiting for the market signals – the consumer adoption – that justify an investment in the platform. The 55% intentshare from the 2012 survey has not resulted in a single percentage point increase in mindshare (still at 21%). Moreover, Microsoft’s attempt to fund development of Windows Phone apps created misalignment of developer incentives. Instead of focusing on consumers, developers were focused on getting the easy money, which resulted in sub-par apps. As we have said before, you can’t buy developer love.

The majority of mobile developers have already adopted iOS and Android, hence the relatively low Intentshare among those platforms. However, among developers that have yet to adopt one of these two platforms, interest is quite high: 77% of developers in our survey that have not yet adopted Android, plan to adopt it – for iOS the figure stands at 61%. So these two platforms are still on the radar for developers that have yet to adopt them.

Beyond iOS and Android, mobile developers are showing interest in Facebook, with 23% of mobile developers indicating that they plan to adopt the platform. Facebook offers little in terms of mobile app development at present but it provides unprecedented reach. With around 1Bn active users, it is one of the widest reaching digital platforms on the planet.

The considerable levels of Intentshare for Windows Phone (47%) and BB10 (15%) indicate that there is still developer interest in a viable third app ecosystem.

[doritos_report location=’DE13 Article – Windows Phone: buy it and they will come’]

Categories
Platforms

Our 2012 Platform Shootout and Implications for 2013

developer platforms

In our 2012 Developer Economics report we included a developer sentiment barometer for the various mobile platforms. As we move into 2013 several new platforms are on their way but all of them look very similar to existing platforms from a developer perspective. We can use this existing data to predict how developers will perceive the new platforms.

Here’s the key developer sentiment table:
Developer-Sentiment-2012

Not all factors are equal in generating developer activity

The iOS scores show what really matters to developers in a relatively healthy ecosystem. While  learning curve and development cost are important pain points for iOS developers (here developer sentiment echoes the difficulty of Objective C and the cost of buying a Mac to develop for iOS, respectively) and ease of coding and prototyping is poor, there is good access to APIs and reach and revenues are great. As long as those factors stay positive we can expect the iOS ecosystem to continue to thrive.

Android had healthy developer activity in early 2012, mostly due to great growth of the platform and developers’ belief in its future. The good API access has only improved and Google & partners took steps that have significantly improved the revenue generation issues. Android v4, launched in 2012, was the first version to ask users for a credit card on sign-up and the Android Market was overhauled and then relaunched as Google Play. Android looks set to continue to grow developer activity in 2013

Windows Phone lies at the other end of the spectrum. Developers are very happy with the ease of coding and prototyping, cost of development & learning curve, whilst access to features was only average. Unfortunately, although developers enjoy building apps for the platform, reach is bad and revenues are poor. There don’t appear to be any major issues with the Windows Phone Marketplace compared to rival stores and competition for user attention is lower, so we can assume that revenue issues are primarily due to the lack of reach. Although the introduction of Windows Phone 8 has improved access to features, early indications are that it has not meaningfully impacted the reach issue yet. Microsoft and partners have had to financially incentivise a significant amount of the developer activity for Windows Phone and that is likely to continue unless the platform gains much greater traction with consumers.

New Developer Platforms for 2013:

BlackBerry 10

BlackBerry 10 is due to launch at the end of January. From a developer perspective, the platform is cutting off the existing installed base of devices by not providing support for the legacy BlackBerry Java environment. Instead, BlackBerry 10 supports a native environment with an optional Qt-based application framework, an Android runtime and mobile web apps. The Qt platform was very popular with community of developers using it when it was Nokia’s primary environment and the developer satisfaction is reflected in the scores in our table above. It was one of the strongest platforms all round with the main weaknesses in reach and revenue. As the BlackBerry 10 platform is starting from scratch, reach is going to be an even bigger problem there and thus lack of revenue will also be a major concern for developers, despite BlackBerry App World’s historical record in this regard. The addition of the Android runtime gives developers a lower cost entry to a curated app store with lower competition, extending the reach of their existing investment. This suggests the Android runtime will be the most popular option for developers on BlackBerry 10, unless they can get an excellent start to sales of the new platform, driving developers to invest in native apps to establish themselves early with a superior user experience.

Firefox OS and Tizen

Mozilla’s Firefox OS and Samsung’s Tizen are both expected to debut this year and both aim to run mobile web apps as first class citizens. The Firefox OS has some backing from network operators and targets low cost smartphones. We’ll have to wait and see whether Tizen does better than Samsung’s last platform, bada, which had a promising start but little developer traction. Both platforms add more API access for mobile web developers and if they achieve any scale in the market, should also improve revenue generation. Overall, success for either of these platforms should make mobile web developers happier. The key question here is that if the web runtime is not offering a sufficiently compelling user experience on the existing platforms then how likely are web-only platforms to succeed, particularly with lower cost hardware. This strategy didn’t work for Palm with WebOS – can it work in 2013 or maybe 2014? Games are the most popular category of apps and they typically require the performance that only native apps provide.

Sailfish

The Sailfish OS from tiny Finish startup Jolla is due to launch a first device early this year. It’s also pinning its app ecosystem hopes on a native Qt-based application framework and Android app compatibility, much like BlackBerry 10. Developers should be very happy with the technical aspects of these environments. Jolla’s challenge is a lack of resources to get reach and thus solve developer revenue issues. Their plan for this relies on alliances with Chinese OEMs and networks, with western open source fanatics as a smaller secondary market. The ability of this platform to survive depends upon Jolla’s ability to do deals in China far more than their technical execution.

Ubuntu Mobile

Last but not least, newly launched Ubuntu Mobile also has a Qt-based application framework, this time paired with mobile web apps as first class citizens. As you can see from our table this is probably the best combination for developer satisfaction but they currently have no concrete device plans to share and don’t expect anything to ship until 2014. They do have a much bigger existing brand in developing markets than Jolla and theoretically a similar offering (both in terms of user experience and technology).

Developer Platforms: Conclusions

Android and iOS look set to continue growing their application ecosystems. Windows Phone appear to have another year of uphill struggle to gain acceptance. For any of these new platforms to generate developer activity on a similar scale to iOS and Android they need to achieve massive reach. That seems highly dependent upon Chinese OEMs deserting Android in search of differentiation (for all but BlackBerry 10) and consumer acceptance of platforms that, at least initially, have much smaller app ecosystems in every case. We’re not expecting any of these to gain major market share in 2013. If one of them does take off, history suggests that the developers who got in early will have an advantage. However, with so many relatively similar offerings on the way, it’s not clear where developers should invest their effort.

Categories
Business

Different Ways of Winning on the App Stores

winning on the app stores

A recent report from Canalys highlighted the extreme concentration of income distribution across the iOS and Android stores in the US. The top 25 publishers make 50% of the revenues. 24 out of 25 of those are games publishers (the 1 exception is the Pandora music streaming service). During the first 20 days of November these 25 publishers made $60m from paid downloads and in-app purchases in the US alone. Is there still room left for smaller publishers? How can smaller companies succeed and start winning on the app stores?

Continue reading “Different Ways of Winning on the App Stores”