The latest Distimo Report (July 2010 looking at June 2010) from app store analytics company Distimo looks in detail at app stores and how effective they are – particularly for in-app purchases.
In the report Distimo looked at the Apple App Store for iPad and iPhone, BlackBerry App World (Worldwide), Google Android Market, Nokia Ovi Store, Palm App Catalog and Windows Marketplace for Mobile for June 2010 in the United States.
Proportion of app store sections with in-app purchases- for iPad and iPhone - Source Distimo July 2010
Distimo found that the percentage of applications with in-app purchases is significantly higher in the Apple App Store for iPad (10%) than in the Apple App Store for iPhone (2%), with Games and Social Networking categories in both stores getting the highest proportion of applications with in-app purchases available.
Distimo credits the higher percentage of applications with in-app purchases for the iPad down to timing of the launches of in-app purchasing and this may change in the August report. But Distimo caveat this and say that it maybe down to the way the iPad is used more as a media consumption device than the iPhone, with magazines such as Sports Illustrated and Wired magazine selling their content as in-app purchases.
The most successful free applications that monetised using in-app purchases this month in the Apple App Store for iPhone are an odd mix, there’s two games, one is unsurprisingly a World Cup themed game, and a free TV app.
- MobiTV
- ESPN 2010 FIFA World Cup
- Tap Fish from BayView Labs.
The most successful paid applications that monetised using in-app purchases this month in the Apple App Store for iPhone were two games and a GPS app;
- Guitar Hero from Activision Publishing
- TomTom US
- Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies II from Activision Publishing
Mirroring the June 2010 Distimo report (covering May 2010), Pages and iBooks, published by Apple, are again the number one paid and free applications on the Apple App Store for iPad, respectively.
Nine out of the ten most popular paid applications on the Apple App Store for iPhone are Games, however only two out of the ten most popular free applications are Games. In the Nokia Ovi Store, seven out of ten of the most popular paid applications are Games, while only three out of ten of the most popular free applications are Games.
You can download the full report here.