Soon I plan to do a recap of my first year selling apps in the Android Market (whew!), but for now I'll just stick to recapping last month...
Unfortunately I'm going to start getting a little vague and cagey about hard numbers. This is because I've started to make deals with other developers, and those deals don't necessarily include publicly disclosing sales and revenue figures.
But I can say that February was Polyclef's best month to date, revenue-wise. The Android Market ranking shuffle didn't have a big impact, keeping my top-performing apps in the top five in their category. Ad revenue has stayed mostly flat, while sales have increased. Historically, ad and sales revenue had been about 50/50, but February saw a shift to over 60% of my revenue coming from sales. I'd prefer that most of my revenue come from ads...ad-based apps are a better defense against piracy, and I don't have to worry about finding the best price points, etc. But I'll take the revenue how ever it wants to come.
I'm not doing nearly as well as Edward Kim (see the last post), but I'm getting there. Instead of having a single, high-profile app, I've got a variety of about 20 apps, and I'm using a mixed strategy for revenue. This has led to, and will hopefully continue to lead to, robust, sustained growth.
Stay tuned for the yearly recap, where I'll talk about how far Polyclef has come and what the plans are for the next year...obviously I'm optimistic.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
An Android Success Story
Edward Kim has blogged about his experiences with his app Car Locator, after placing 3rd in his category in the ADC2 and being featured in the Android Market.
He says he was making $80-100/day off the app before it was featured. Being featured bumped this up to about $435/day. Now, I'd heard that being featured by Apple in the iTunes store can vault your app into massive numbers, but until now I hadn't heard about any comparable effect in the Android Market. Being featured more than quadrupled his daily revenue, so I'd say that's a pretty nice effect. It does make sense, since the featured apps are the very first thing you see when you open the Android Market app.
None of my apps has been featured by Google, but PetBook did get featured in T-Mobile's Top Picks. Then I only had a free version, and I've struggled with complaints from some users regarding information being saved properly and the photo gallery working right. Here's a graphic of my usage stats for PetBook, and the bump I got from T-Mobile near the end of January (that second bump is from releasing an update).
Around the time of the first peak, I had two $9.00 days from the advertising in PetBook, but within a week I was back down to the norm of about $0.75/day. It would have been interesting to see if I had an active paid version whether that would have translated into some really nice sales, but oh well.
The temporary boost was nice, but apparently nowhere near being featured in the main Android Market. Maybe someday...
Anyway, congrats to Edward. He encourages devs interested in mobile app development to give Android a try. More awareness of success stories is going to lead to much more interest in the platform. I'm generating a very nice income myself...not up to $13K a month, yet, but definitely a self-sustaining income. So it can definitely be done.
He says he was making $80-100/day off the app before it was featured. Being featured bumped this up to about $435/day. Now, I'd heard that being featured by Apple in the iTunes store can vault your app into massive numbers, but until now I hadn't heard about any comparable effect in the Android Market. Being featured more than quadrupled his daily revenue, so I'd say that's a pretty nice effect. It does make sense, since the featured apps are the very first thing you see when you open the Android Market app.
None of my apps has been featured by Google, but PetBook did get featured in T-Mobile's Top Picks. Then I only had a free version, and I've struggled with complaints from some users regarding information being saved properly and the photo gallery working right. Here's a graphic of my usage stats for PetBook, and the bump I got from T-Mobile near the end of January (that second bump is from releasing an update).
Around the time of the first peak, I had two $9.00 days from the advertising in PetBook, but within a week I was back down to the norm of about $0.75/day. It would have been interesting to see if I had an active paid version whether that would have translated into some really nice sales, but oh well.The temporary boost was nice, but apparently nowhere near being featured in the main Android Market. Maybe someday...
Anyway, congrats to Edward. He encourages devs interested in mobile app development to give Android a try. More awareness of success stories is going to lead to much more interest in the platform. I'm generating a very nice income myself...not up to $13K a month, yet, but definitely a self-sustaining income. So it can definitely be done.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Pro Golf Solitaire Free for iPhone
The free, ad-supported iPhone version of Golf Solitaire Free has been approved and released. It apparently takes some time for new apps to be indexed so that they appear on new release pages and in searches in iTunes. Unfortunately, there were already several golf solitaire apps in the iPhone market, but In A Day Development did a fantastic job with the conversion to iPhone, and I think our version is the best on the market now. With the addition of a free version, which our competitors lack, I think we'll soon gain the competitive edge.
I can't go without commenting on Apple's app review process. I'm not going to go into details. Suffice to say, their approval criteria are...strange. The best thing I can say about it is that it was fast. And it certainly does make me appreciate the Android Market's approach.
I can't go without commenting on Apple's app review process. I'm not going to go into details. Suffice to say, their approval criteria are...strange. The best thing I can say about it is that it was fast. And it certainly does make me appreciate the Android Market's approach.
Asplosive Growth for Android
According to EuroDroid, Gartner estimates that about 6.8 million handsets were purchased last year.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently claimed that currently about 60,000 Android handsets a day are being shipped. That would result in about 22 million Android handsets by the end of the year, assuming no growth.
But we know there's a new slew of Android phones coming out this year, including ones from Sony Ericsson, Dell, Acer, and others that haven't even entered the market yet. So 22 million is pretty conservative.
We're probably going to see at least a quintupling of the Android market by the end of the year.
Hold on to your butts.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently claimed that currently about 60,000 Android handsets a day are being shipped. That would result in about 22 million Android handsets by the end of the year, assuming no growth.
But we know there's a new slew of Android phones coming out this year, including ones from Sony Ericsson, Dell, Acer, and others that haven't even entered the market yet. So 22 million is pretty conservative.
We're probably going to see at least a quintupling of the Android market by the end of the year.
Hold on to your butts.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Android Market Rankings Shuffle
The rankings of apps in the Android Market changed quite a bit, I noticed yesterday. At first I thought it was a periodic bug. I've seen my apps mis-ranked due to glitches in the past. But this actually looks like it might be a permanent change, and it looks like it's probably due to a change in the ranking formula.
For at least the past week, Dominoes had been holding firm at #2 and Golf Solitaire at #4. Here are the new rankings as of yesterday:
Golf Solitaire is now #1, which is cool. But Dominoes slid all the way down to #6. So if this is a deliberate change to the system, what happened?
My guess is that they changed the relative weighting of both retention rate and customer ratings. Here are the stats for both apps (click image to view full-size):
Dominoes has over twice as many active installs, but a slightly lower retention rate and customer rating. And they're both the same price, so that shouldn't be a factor in their difference.
If this is an effort on Google's part to improve rankings by placing more emphasis on quality, then I suppose I'm pleased. I now have a #1 app again, and Dominoes is still selling well. If anyone else has noticed changes and has any further input or insight, please share in the comments.
For at least the past week, Dominoes had been holding firm at #2 and Golf Solitaire at #4. Here are the new rankings as of yesterday:
Golf Solitaire is now #1, which is cool. But Dominoes slid all the way down to #6. So if this is a deliberate change to the system, what happened?
My guess is that they changed the relative weighting of both retention rate and customer ratings. Here are the stats for both apps (click image to view full-size):
Dominoes has over twice as many active installs, but a slightly lower retention rate and customer rating. And they're both the same price, so that shouldn't be a factor in their difference.
If this is an effort on Google's part to improve rankings by placing more emphasis on quality, then I suppose I'm pleased. I now have a #1 app again, and Dominoes is still selling well. If anyone else has noticed changes and has any further input or insight, please share in the comments.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
EasyTether
I'm happy to announce that Polyclef Software has just published EasyTether, a new tethering app for Android developed by Mobile Stream.
As of this writing, the full version of EasyTether sells for $9.95 (while the only other tethering app on Android right now, PdaNet, sells for $23.95).
If you're an Android user in need of tethering, log on to the market and get your copy now!
As of this writing, the full version of EasyTether sells for $9.95 (while the only other tethering app on Android right now, PdaNet, sells for $23.95).
If you're an Android user in need of tethering, log on to the market and get your copy now!
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