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Has anybody had any experience with Windows App store? How does it compare with Android/Iphone in terms of profitability?

I have a good idea for a simple yet (i think) addictive game, that I am going to start to develop. As my experience lies in C#, I was going to develop it for Windows initally.

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4 Answers

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You can find Marketplace sales figures using Google?

http://wp7applist.com/stats/

http://www.windowsphoneapplist.com/stats/

I don't think the comparison of profitability should be made in the first place - if you're experienced in Windows development, your time to market is 100 times faster than starting out on iOS / Android from scratch, especially with games. Porting afterwards is always possible, isn't it? :-)

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alas they don't give figures for # downloads, just quantity of apps in the app store - see Android figures for a comparison: androlib.com/appstats.aspx – gbjbaanb May 27 '11 at 12:43
yeah, but not that much faster than monotouch (or cough it's sequel) – konrad May 27 '11 at 13:05
Not what I asked, but thanks anyway! – Darren Young May 27 '11 at 13:13
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I went to a Microsoft event recently, where they said:

  • 3.2% of all app downloads are paid
  • users are averaging 12 downloads each per month
  • the average price of a paid app is $2.93

I put those together with a guess at the current user base of around 3 million users (warning: that is total speculation) to guess that there's something like $3.5M worldwide available per month from App Marketplace customers. As there are 7500 developers on the marketplace who have submitted apps, that's $467 per developer per month, assuming all developers produce apps of equal value. Which is wrong.

Important Point: that's data for revenue generated inside the app marketplace. If you make money through a third-party ad service, that won't appear here.

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Interesting. Thanks. – Darren Young May 27 '11 at 13:14
3 million WP7 handsets in the hands of actual users is what most 3rd party reports are indicating, so that sounds about right. – Matthew Frederick May 27 '11 at 13:55
not all of them: winrumors.com/… What's true is that Microsoft says it shipped 2 million units up to January (to the carriers, not the public), so unless they've sold a whole bunch since then, I call BS on the 3 million figure. – gbjbaanb May 27 '11 at 23:15
@gbjbaanb I saw figures claiming 1.6m sales in q1 2011, so that would be consistent with 3m total. Of course, as I say it's pure speculation, but as revenue is assumed O(N) with users in my model you should be able to plug in your own estimate easily ;-) – Graham Lee May 28 '11 at 7:21
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The biggest aspect to all this is the user base. If 3.2% (thanks Graham Lee) of all apps are paid for, then you're likely to get significantly less for a WP7 app than an iPhone or Android one. Why? Simply because there are much more Android or iPhone users.

This link puts it into stark contrast: think that there's £3.5 million revenue available for every WP7 user in the world... Apple makes, $200 million per month! The link doesn't give numbers for WP7, just Android and iPhone, but it looks right - Android users buy half as many apps than the iPhone users, but they do click on more ads. I've seen blogs from phone devs where they say that they make enough money from the ads on Android.

Oh yes, that link... from 2009. Imagine how much they get today.

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I have researched it in the past and noticed one big data point.

The more users the platform has the bigger "hit" you can be but it will be harder to become one.

Meaning that you can make big bucks in the iPhone app store but getting noticed there is hard (because of the volume of apps and the app store not being great at promoting new apps). The android market has a fair share of users but most of them are not used to paying for their apps (will change in the - I believe - near future) which makes it great for free ad supported apps and finally there's the WP7 marketplace, which is pretty good BUT has a very small user base.

I do believe that if you come from a C# background and the investment is minimal you should go for it, if only to be among the first developers in this up and coming market. Being there first will give you an advantage in the long run if you can maintain quality apps.

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