Comments on: Growth of iPhone App Store: Two times faster than the iTunes

By: roger

roger — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:15:41 +0000

anyway…i will buy an iPhone

By: gene

gene — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:26:31 +0000

Peter,

70% goes to the developer not apple. Apple only takes a 30% cut. That inverts your calculations.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:44:38 +0000

Steve makes a very good point here. And to add on to it further, what percentage of people’s music content is paid content from iTunes? Steve Jobs suggested that the figure is around 7%.
What’s my point? Well, if iTunes is successful when only 7% of people’s musical content is paid for, and the App Store is growing 2-4 times faster than iTunes, with a base that’s at least 10 times smaller (there have been 160 million iPods sold), and Apple has a monopoly on iPhone Apps and keeps 70% of the revenue… App Store is looking pretty profitable to me.
Let’s do the math: Let’s say that each iPhone user, on average, splurges on Apps an buys 1 App of 0.99$ per month… and let’s say that Apple has 14M iPhones sold by the end of 2008. Let’s even forget about the Touch users. That’s 14M of revenue every month, 70% goes to Apple, so $116,000,000 per year in earnings (if we place the App Store overhead at zero). Not bad for a business that started 2 months ago…
Not realistic you say: ever seen what teenagers pay for ringtones?
More importantly though, even if Apply doesn’t make a dime on the App Store, the spinoff effect is tremendous. These Apps effectively change what the iPhone can do… how many users will sign on because of a function they see on their buddy’s iPhone? Well, I’m a financial consultant and at least 3 of my colleagues decided to buy iPhones when they saw my Bloomberg App (which is free by the way).
Food for thought.
Cheers!

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:39:36 +0000

Ah but music plays on every model of iPod/iPhone, iTunes on Mac and Windows. The Apps only work on iTouch and iPhone.
So quite a difference in size of client base.

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:27:37 +0000

22% you idiot.

By: Shagghie

Shagghie — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:15:00 +0000

Don’t miss the point fellas….the App Store is blowing up…it’s completely off the hook, and an entirely new paradigm that is successful by any measure or comparison.
Some apps cost $99, others cost $129, some are free.
The point is that a) the apps are amazing, and truly kickass b) the apps are easily accessible and c) the apps are being socially accepted.

“App-binging” is already a term in the hacker community for going on an app binge and buying wayyyyyyyyyy too many apps while in the john. You can spend $100 in 5 minutes!

LOVELY STUFF GENTS! And, just think when there are as many iPhones as there are iPods out there!

By: Brendan Jordan

Brendan Jordan — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:55:08 +0000

That may be the case Hubert, but what percentage of the applications being downloaded are from the 22% of free applications available?

By: hubert

hubert — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:18:28 +0000

78% of Apps in App Store are paid applications according to mobclix com…

By: roger

roger — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:27:10 +0000

definitely quote BOB and quote Brendan.
It’s incredible how poor of these information (reported in the comments) the post is..How you can’t take in consideration the iPhone/iPod touch’s penetration respect of that of the original iPod and the “free apps deal” only iPhonestalk knows…

By: Brendan Jordan

Brendan Jordan — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:16:40 +0000

The APS Store is not comparable.
Firstly, many of the applications are available for free. Secondly, Apple’s iPhone & iPod touch devices are far more ubiquitous now than iPods were at this point after their introduction to the market place.
Given these two facts, anyone would expect far faster growth from the APS store.