February 2013 THE NEW APPS IN THE CROWD By Anne Hezemans, Analyst at Distimo Publication - February 2013 Distimo ©2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Publication - February 2013 Hello, my name is A brief introduction Distimo was created because the founders were frustrated by the lack of insights into the performance of their apps, and the manual work needed to track the most important metrics. Today, Distimo provides the #1 free app store analytics tool, tracking over 2.6 billion downloads / quarter for major developers worldwide. Distimo AppIQ is the most accurate source of app data that helps developers and financial services companies to make well informed strategic decisions in the global app market. We offer three core services: • App Analytics track your apps across all major app stores and ad networks. • AppIQ get access to the most accurate and daily download and revenue estimations for any app. • Conversion Tracking measure your full app sales funnel from discovery to app launch. Founded in 2009, Distimo is a privately held company based in The Netherlands. Follow us on Twitter, read our blog or learn more at www.distimo.com. Distimo ©2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Publication - February 2013 New and noteworthy Who are the newcomers in the application market, and which new applications should you be on the lookout for in 2013? We already reported on successful publishing in our 2012 year-end report, and since the apparent importance of new top applications we studied the new publishers and applications further. This month’s publication, “The New Apps in the Crowd”, covers the Apple App Store for iPhone, the Apple App Store for iPad, and Google Play from October 2012 through January 2013. We used the information of the new top publishers and applications of AppIQ, which includes daily estimates of download volumes and revenue for each application. The major findings are: Of the top 250 publishers in the Apple App Store for iPhone in the U.S. only 2% are new publishers, compared to three percent for Google Play in the U.S.. The newcomers in Google Play have published more applications than the new publishers in the Apple App Stores for iPhone and iPad. The top 250 new publishers in the U.S. in Google Play published an average of six free applications, while the top new pubs in the U.S. in the Apple App Store for iPhone published an average of two free applications. 17% of the top 300 applications in the Apple App Store for iPhone in the U.S. were new applications, and in 12% of the top 300 applications in the U.S. were new in Google Play. The new applications in Google Play gained relatively more revenue than the new applications in the Apple App Store during the four months from October 2012 through January 2013. 18% of the total revenue (including in-app purchases) went to new Google Play applications in the U.S., while 12% went to new applications in the Apple App Store for iPhone. The most downloaded new applications in the Apple App Store were Temple Run 2, Google Maps, and LINE POP. They were released one day and reached over one million downloads worldwide the next day. The fastest growing new applications in terms of revenue in the Apple App Store were Angry Birds Star Wars (and HD), Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Temple Run 2. They each gained one million dollar worldwide within one week after release. Alongside this publication we host a free webinar on the subject of new publishers and applications on Monday 4th of March @ 5:00 PM (CET). Please register here to join the webinar. Distimo ©2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Publication - February 2013 Introduction This month’s publication reviews the newest developments in publishers and applications. Who are these new top publishers? And which new applications are enjoying the most success? It is a very crowded application market, and there are literally hundreds of thousands of applications on the store shelves. As one might expect, the adoption rate is highest in the games category, where applications generate the most downloads and revenue. However, other kinds of applications can generate a lot of downloads too. We begin this month report by looking at the new publishers, then we will study the new applications. And finally we look at the amount of time needed to reach one million downloads to determine which new applications are the most successful. The term “new application” signifies the moment any application of the publisher was first seen in the respective application store within the last four months – from October 2012 through January 2013. The big picture Let us first take a look at the big picture to maintain a sense of perspective. Google Play showed relative huge growth in the past six months, with a growth of 107% in daily revenues across the 20 biggest +52% countries1 compared to August 2012. The growth in the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad was less in the past six months, but still amounted to 52% growth in daily revenues. The growth was 17% for Google Play within the last month, and a mere three percent for the Apple App Store. It is important to remember, however, that the absolute values in the +107% Apple App Store were already much higher. Apple recently announced that eight billion dollar Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan has been paid out to developers. This represents an increase of $1 billion since the last time numbers 1Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Nether- were announced on January 7, 2012, and a huge lands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States increase in developer payouts. New publishers take a small bite of the revenue pie Among the top 250 publishers within the last four months, only a small number of publishers were new. For example, two percent of publishers were new in the Apple App Store for iPad and iPhone in the U.S., compared to three percent for Google Play. The share of new publishers was higher with regard to the smaller countries: six percent for Google Play and six percent for the Apple App Store for iPhone. Distimo ©2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Publication - February 2013 Proportion revenue new publishers of the top 250 U.S. publishers 1.5% New publishers 1.0% represent a small part of 0.5% the revenue 0.0% These new publishers represent an even smaller part of the revenue, and show that it really is a tight market. The top new publishers in Google Play gained relatively more revenue than the new publishers in the Apple App Store. Of the total revenue (including in-app purchases), just 1.2% goes to new publishers in Google Play in the U.S., and in the Apple App Store for iPhone this number is just .25%. Top 10 new publishers in U.S. The top 10 new publishers in the U.S. based on the number of downloads are presented below. A number of pub- lishers in the Apple App Store for iPhone reached the top list with Christmas-related applications. These include: Find the Elves- Elf on the Shelf®- Christmas Game from The Elf on the Shelf CCA & B LLC. and ElfYourself by OfficeMax from Magic Mirror LLC. Which stresses the importance of Christmas Holidays on app sales. Top 10 new publishers in the U.S. (Oct. 2012-Jan. 2013) 1. Yau You Music Video Professionals Easy Tiger Apps, LLC. Snapchat, Inc 2. Magic Mirror LLC Magic Mirror LLC Hapoga Jellyvision Games, Inc. 3. The Elf on the Shelf CCA & B LLC. Droid App Solutions 4. Maura Thompson Maura Thompson Fonts for FlipFont® 5. Reinvent Florene Mitchell Amazing Game 6. Food Maker Inc. Cookies! ASPS Apps Doodle Joy Studio 7. Florene Mitchell Jellyvision Games, Inc. Wooga 8. Willie Humphrey Reinvent Mirmay Limited 9. TouchFrame Social Quantum sumofun 10. Boomlagoon Tapple RockYou! Distimo ©2013, some rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Publication - February 2013 New pubs The newcomers in Google Play published more applications than the new publishers did in the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad from October 2012 through January launch more 2013. The top new publishers in Google Play released an average of six free and/or paid applications on shelves of the store, while the top publishers in the Apple App Store apps in for iPhone released two free and/or paid applications. A plausible explanation is that the review policy of Apple App Store makes that is harder for new publishers to release Google Play applications. Top new applications A whole different story can be told when we go down to an app level. The most popular new applications are published by publishers who are more widely known, although there are some exceptions. A less familiar name is for example Majic Jungle Software with The Blockheads, who was considered as one of the best new games apps. Proportion revenue new applications of the top 300 U.S. applications 20% The revenue 15% share of Google Play’s new 10% applications is 5% larger than of 0% the Apple App Stores New applications have more impact on the top applications selection. It reflects the higher rotation rate of applications. In the US 17% of the top 300 Applications in the Apple App Store for iPhone were new applications, for example, while in Google Play only 12% of the top 300 applications were new.