Archive for November, 2009

Apple’s Black Friday Featured Apps

Monday, November 30th, 2009

To celebrate Black Friday, Apple put up a new section titled “App Store Essentials – Black Friday”. As we monitor all apps worldwide, we are able to track the influence of this promotion on the rankings of the featured applications.

Below you can find the rankings of these apps in the category they were published in:

Black Friday Rankings

Santa’s List – Christmas Gift Organizer entered the Productivity Top 100 because of the promotion, as well as Pocket Price (Lifestyle) and TheFind (Lifestyle), all achieving a ranking of 33 or better. Christmas Gifts List even entered the Overall Top 100 because of the promotion.

Being one of the apps in these promotional places greatly influences rankings and hence downloads, as we have seen before with “Apps for Everything” and “App Store Picks“. We will keep you posted on other promotional events by Apple.

Recap of this week’s app store news

Saturday, November 28th, 2009
  • The first Dell Smartphone, was launched in China with China Mobile.
  • The China Mobile Market now also contains applications for the Ophone platform, which is similar to Android, but custom made for China Mobile.
  • The AppJam event in London was held. Find our presentation wrapup and slides with a selection of new stats from all major app stores here.

AppJam Presentation Wrapup and Slides

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

AppJam

Last Monday, we went to AppJam in London, a European focused meet-up to share knowledge and learn more about developments from the major app stores. I was keynote speaker at the event and gave a presentation about application store stats, which you can find embedded below. The major findings in this presentation were:

  • Apple App Store leads the pack in terms of amount of applications, having about a 100,000 applications available, compared to Android Market (14,000) and BlackBerry App World (3,300).
  • Increase of amount of applications on Android Market and BlackBerry App World however will be driven by the amount of devices coming available with these stores pre-installed, and additional country support.
  • Android Market has significant more free applications available, which may be caused by Google’s less strict approval process and the necessity to use Google Checkout for payments
  • BlackBerry applications are about 3 times as expensive as Android’s and Apple’s. Cross-store publishers also charge higher prices for their apps on App World.
  • Apple’s popularity ranking system favours cheap applications, however, most revenue is made by the more expensive applications, in spite of having less downloads than the cheap applications. The average price for the most popular applications was $2,58 in October, and $10.30 for the most grossing applications.
  • When it comes to in-app purchasing, Games are most succesful at making revenue. Read more about this on TechCrunch.
  • Succesful apps get more exposure on Android and App World than on Apple App Store. The average amount of days in the top 100 for the Apple App Store was only 14, while for Android and BlackBerry this was 26 and 20 respectively (October).

I would like to thank the organizers, Laurence and Tania, for the great event! I highly recommend it to anyone interested in mobile apps!

If you have any questions, please contact .

First Dell Ophone Apps In China Mobile Market

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Yesterday, we wrote about the first Dell smartphone, the Mini 3i, coming to the Chinese market this week. China Mobile’s app store, the Mobile Market, clearly features the Dell Mini 3i as one of the supported phones since yesterday.

Now today, the first applications for the Dell Ophone are available in the China Mobile Market:

Dell applications in China Mobile Market

Dell applications in China Mobile Market

At this moment 69 Applications and 67 Games are available, with no Themes yet. For other phones that run on the Ophone platform more content is already available, so expect new Apps and Games for the Dell Mini 3i soon in the China Mobile Market.

Dell Ophone Coming To China: With Apps In Mobile Market

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Dell is launching its first smartphone this week in China. The Dell Mini 3i will be available via China Mobile, the largest operator in China with 500 million subscribers. The Mini 3i is the first Ophone:

The smartphone is one of the first Ophones in the world, a brand promoted by China Mobile to make sure consumers know it uses the Linux-based Open Mobile System (OMS) developed by the company. OMS is very similar to Android, the reason Dell will release the handset elsewhere with Google’s popular mobile phone OS inside. (via PCWorld)

We are wondering how this device will work with apps. There are not too many details announced, but the China Mobile app store, Mobile Market already features the Dell Mini 3i in the store:

Right now, there are no applications available yet in the store for the Dell Opone, but this should be coming soon as the device will enter the Chinese market later this week.

Recap of this week’s app store news

Saturday, November 21st, 2009
  • Samsung Bada applications will be distributed via Samsung’s Application Store.
  • Windows Marketplace is now also available for older Windows Mobile phones.
  • The Apple App Store is now officially available in China for three weeks, we made an overview of the most popular content.
  • Distimo will present at next week’s AppJam event in London on Monday November 23.
  • Maemo applications for Nokia phones are coming to the Nokia Ovi Store.

Maemo Apps Coming To Nokia Ovi Store

Friday, November 20th, 2009

Recently, Nokia launched the N900 phone, the first model running on Maemo, which is a Linux based operating system. Nokia plans to launch more phones with Maemo and right now the first applications are available in Maemo Select:

maemo_select

Maemo Select is a web based store that will combine Maemo applications from both the Ovi Store and the Maemo Community. Right now, 47 free applications are available, with wallpapers and themes coming soon.

Maemo applications will also become available in the Nokia Ovi Store. The device client for downloading and purchasing apps is also coming soon. Including Maemo, the Ovi Store would support four different platforms: Java, Symbian, Widgets and Maemo.

It is not clear why Nokia would distribute apps for Maemo in both Maemo Select and the Ovi Store. It could be that Maemo Select is an intermediary solution and that it will be replaced by the Ovi Store.

Distimo At AppJam Event In London Next Week

Thursday, November 19th, 2009
AppJam

On Monday November 23, the AppJam event will take place in London. AppJam is a series of meet-ups to share knowledge and best practices around mobile applications.

The upcoming meet-up is titled: 2009 Winter Jam: ‘To App or Not to App’. During this event, Remco van den Elzen will present our latest findings on all major mobile app stores:

Monitoring Trends Within Application Stores
In this session, we will explore the mobile application store landscape in general, and focus on insights gained from the Apple App Store, Google Android Market and  BlackBerry App World. We will share with you interesting statistics that have been gathered from these stores, not only on an individual app store level, but across all stores as well.

So if you are interested in mobile apps and located around London, go check it out. Admission is free. You can sign up here.

Most Popular Apps In The Chinese App Store

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

At the end of October, the Apple App Store was officially launched in China with the operator Unicom selling the first iPhones. The App Store was however already accessible in China at the end of August, but lacking the Games category. After three weeks of iPhone sales in China, we decided to make an overview of the most popular content.

These are the 20 most popular paid applications, since the launch of the iPhone in China:

Most popular paid apps in Chinese App Store since iPhone launch

Most popular paid apps in Chinese App Store since iPhone launch

A few takes from this:

  • Games are now supported in the Chinese Apple App Store
  • Prices for paid content are in USD
  • From the top 20, half of the applications are specifically aimed at Chinese users
  • 9 out of 20 top applications are Games, compared to 11 out of 20 for the US App Store (see for more details on the US app store our latest report).

These are the 20 most popular free applications, since the launch of the iPhone in China:

Most popular free apps in Chinese App Store since iPhone launch

Compared to the most popular paid apps, a few things catch our attention:

  • 13 out of 20 top titles are Games
  • 8 of the top 20 applications are specifically aimed at Chinese users

As the Wall Street Journal reports, there are big opportunities for developers in the Chinese App Store. Especially if the billing methods, that are now limited to credit card improve, because credit cards are not common for Chinese consumers yet.

We will keep tracking the applications in the Apple App Store in China and will report whether it will continue to offer a large proportion of local content.

Windows Marketplace Available For Older Phones

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

There are several announcements around Windows Marketplace for Mobile these weeks. Last week, Microsoft launched a Web Version of its store, allowing users to discover apps from the desktop.

Following the announcements that Marketplace would support older phones, the store is now available for Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 phones. Consumers that do not have a brand new phone with Windows Mobile 6.5 can now also get Marketplace on their phone and start downloading apps.

To reach the announced 30 million consumers worldwide with access to the store, this was a required step for Microsoft. However, the reach will have to build up since users with an older Windows phone will have to install Marketplace manually first.

If you have a Windows Mobile 6.0 or 6.1 phone, you can download Marketplace here.


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