iPhone App Downloads Are Up. What About Their Usage?
The iPhone App Store is red hot: In its first month, more than 60 million software programs were downloaded, and it generated about $1 million a day in sales. That information comes from Steve Jobs in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. In his interview, Jobs says the developers took home $21 million in the first month, of which $9 million went to the top 10 developers. One of the biggest selling app: Sega Corp’s $9.99 Super Monkeyball game, which sold more than 300,000 copies in 20 days. (iPhone as a gaming platform isn’t such a crazy idea after all!)
About 10 million apps were downloaded in the first week of the launch of the Apps Store. Jobs said that Apple takes 30 percent of the total sales and that covers the costs associated with keeping the App store running, including the cost of credit card transactions. “This thing’s going to crest a half a billion, soon…Who knows, maybe it will be a $1 billion marketplace at some point in time,” he told the Journal. Jobs said that going forward, in the world of mobile phones, the differentiating factor is going to be software.
The big question about the Apps store is whether downloads are going translate into actual and sustained usage of these apps.
Downloads Yes, Usage – Maybe
I have downloaded nearly three dozen apps: Loopt, Where, Nearby, Shozu, WordPress, Twinkle, Shazam, NetNewsWire, MLB At Bat and Facebook being amongst the most notable ones. Only Twinkle, Facebook, NetNewsWire andShozu are truly worth using on a daily basis. The MLB At Bat’s video (over 3G) is simply deplorable.
I wondered if I was the odd man out here, downloading and then not using the apps. To get some clarity, I asked Greg Yardley, founder of New York City-based Pinch Media, a startup that has developed analytics for iPhone apps.
Using the caveat that only a few app makers were using the Pinch Analytics library, he pointed out that as per their data, the ratio of free downloads to paid downloads is at least 10:1. He also said that the pace of downloads is slowing, which is expected because the early rush is behind us. According to data collected by Pinch Media, on average, less than 20 percent of an application’s overall unique users return to an application each day. Yardley also pointed out that people are using the apps for just under five minutes at a time, on average. The majority only use the applications once per day; the average number of uses per day is around 1.2.
Looks like I am not the only one who is getting bored with some of the more blah apps. Phew!
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
disagree with you here Om
How many apps do you use every day on your Mac? I’d wager less than 10. Yet like me you probably have at least 100 apps in your app folder. The same thing happens on the iPhone. I use about 7 apps daily but have lots more which will prove useful from time to time.
“…the pace of downloads is slowing, which is expected because the early rush is behind us.”
Nonsense.
There are millions and millions of NEW users to be added to the iPhone phenomenon, just think XMas and 70+ new countries. What do you think they’ll do with the App Store?
The narrow mindedness and short focus of some is remarkable.
Om,
You’re wrong. How many applications do you use on your laptop daily? How many of those are specialty apps for once a week/month when you truly need it? See my point?
Even though I too have a ton of apps on my iPhone, Mail and Safari are used 99% of the time. But those other apps are great for when you really need them.
Let’s face it, the apps were purchased because the whole platform is new. I don’t use ANY of them. This was a one time deal and until compelling apps come out (Loopt the exception, although more users needed), it will remain a one time deal. The phone is too big, the apps too limited.
I’ve downloaded a bunch of Apps and most suck. I haven’t spent too much money, which is fortunate since many pay Apps do not offer free trials (Lite) and there’s no return option as far as I can tell, regardless of how many times an App crashes.
There is a lot of truth in what Mr. Om says. He is talking about his experience and generalizing it to the rest of us and I also feel its true. As an iPhone app developer I would say its a good new market. The pent up demand in the first two weeks was like a dam burst. Now things are getting down to day to day business. Early apps were quick and sometimes dirty, those will continue but we should start to see more thoughtful, larger and more complex apps emerging.
Of course as I walk around NYC I won’t use the iPhone as much as sitting down at my Mac but neither do I use the iPhone as little as I did my last cell phone which served to make calls and thats it.
after reading this I am seriously thinking of developing a game or 2 for an iPhone.
Weird, every person that claims to disagree, actually agrees with the article, and provides further evidence proving his claim.
People do not use most of the apps they download.
Om, great article.
Would you agree that one of the biggest problems is that developers have been sidetracked with either recreating the desktop experience or scratching the surface (no pun intended) of the most obvious UI enhancements (think Koi pond)? Shouldn’t they be thinking about really ground-breaking things that can emerge from location based awareness?
The concern about how often various iPhone apps are used after they are downloaded is valuable but the statement that Apple is making, that developers are making, & more importantly that users are making is that there is a need & a demand to use the mobile phone for things other than making phone calls & sending text messages. The mobile phone has become the new personal computer & as network speeds continue to improve & users are educated on the power of the existing applications & the many applications that are to come it’s going to change the way we all live. The way we conduct business, process transactions, & communicate is going to change!