iPad app market now 14% of total Apple app store market

Distimo’s regular US monthly app report is out for the month of October and it shows that Apple app developers appear to be prone to cheating on their old-faithful iPhone with the new high-class rich thing in town the iPad.

Distimo found that the proportion of iPad-only applications outgrew the proportion of universal applications during the second quarter of 2010. This trend reversed in July 2010 with the proportion of iPad and universal applications in November being equal (7%). However when you look at the total number of iPad apps – universal and iPad only – the iPad apps now represent 14% of the total Apple app market, that’s 37,887 apps in the iPad store against 263,913 iPhone apps, up from 11% in September, 30,781 iPad apps to 250,330 iPhone apps. Additionally Distimo report that iPad apps are growing fast averaging some 5,452 a month being added against the 12,218 added to the iPhone list.

So what is it that makes them desert to the iPad? Well it’s money. The Distimo report shows the average price for an application in the Apple App Store for iPad increased from $4.34 in April 2010 to $4.97 in October 2010 (+14.5%). During the same period, the average price of an application in the Apple App Store for iPhone increased only slightly from $3.94 to $4.03 (+2.3%).

Additionally the average price of the top 100 paid applications in October 2010 is 171% higher in the Apple App Store for iPad than in the Apple App Store for iPhone; $5.80 compared with $2.14, respectively.

Distimo explains that much of the difference is due to the long-tail of cheaper paid apps in the iPhone store, where a large portion of paid applications are priced at $0.99 (45%), while only 24% of applications are priced at this price-point on the iPad.

Does this mean that developers think the iPhone market has reached saturation point? Or are they after the better potential revenues from iPad? Yes, there’s a smaller total market in iPad users, but they’re richer and there’s less competition for eyeballs.

You can download the full report here.

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