Mobile App Development Cost Estimation

• Calculators:
• http://www.kinvey.com/app-cost-estimator
• http://howmuchtomakeanapp.com/
• Articles:
• http://www.formotus.com/14018/blog-mobility/figuring-the-costs-of-custom-mobile-business-app-development
• http://worryfreelabs.com/estimate-cost-building-mobile-app/
• http://appmuse.com/appmusing/how-much-does-it-cost-to-develop-a-mobile-app/

Amazon Kindle Fire Shows Amazing Growth

Amazon Kindle Fire achieves same app usage as Samsung Galaxy tab in just a few months.

Also show interesting stats indicative of tablet market share.

Article: http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/27/flurry-amazons-kindle-fire-is-already-starting-to-smoke-samsungs-galaxy-tab/

Team Size of EBay's Android & iPhone App: 100 Each

This is classic evidence as to why it's extremely difficult to estimate the cost and effort involved in building mobile apps. EBay has 100 staff on the Android version of ONE app, and another 100 staff on the iPhone version of the same ONE app. Two apps with the same list of features can take drastically different amount of time and effort to build, the difference being the level of polish and how much it's perfected vs just churning out a bunch of features.

Reference: http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Science%2Band%2BTech/Story/A1Story20111217-316737.html

Android Platform Version Distribution

Google provides up-to-date information via this web-page:

http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html

Nielsen Reveals "Massive Growth" for Mobile

Reference: http://mobileindustry.ca/2011/09/19/nielsenwire-reveals-more-massive-growth-for-mobile/?utm_campaign=nielsenwire%20reveals%20(more!)%20massive%20growth%20for%20mobile&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter

Interesting stats...

NetApplications: Windows Still Dominate Web Traffic, iOS Fastest growing

Source: tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/12/03/netapplications-apples-ios-internet-share-grew-216-in-a-year/Notes:

1. Windows still has 90% share.
2. iOS fastest growing at 216% from last year.
3. Linux actually lost share.

comScore: Android Gains Market Share

Source: tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/12/03/latest-comscore-numbers-android-gaining-at-expense-of-rim-ms-palm/

Notes:

1. Numbers refers to US market share.
2. Android has 17% in July, 23.5% in Oct.
3. RIM still the market leader at 35.8%.
4. Apple at 24.5% and neck-to-neck with Android.
5. MS & Palm biggest losers.
6. 25% of handset purchases classified as "smart phones".

Mobclix Survey Findings

Source: tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/17/mobiclix-android-users-are-young-and-they-like-physical-keyboards/ 

Notes:

1. Android users prefer physical keyboard.
2. Has 17 apps compared to 28 apps for iPhone users.
3. Top 3 games:
   1. Angry Birds
   2. Solitaire
   3. Jewel
4. Most switched from feature phones.

Wozniak: Android Can be More Popular than iPhone

Source: tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/18/apple-co-founder-android-will-win-smartphone-race/ 

Notes:

1. iOS has more quality / polish but Android has more features.
2. Android can get more marketshare even if it isn't as good.

Some thoughts:

1. Android offers more choice of hardware, features & costs.
2. Apple can't possibly convince majority of consumers to buy the SAME phone.
3. So it's not surprising that Android can be the OS market share leader.
4. But Apple, with their quality leadership, can be the handset manufacturer market share leader.
5. Android also has many big companies making, marketing, and selling handsets.
6. This is Mac vs PC all over again, except this time MS is watching as a spectator.

Angry Birds Expected to Make $1 million a Month On Android Just from Advertising

Source: tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/12/03/how-angry-birds-makes-a-million-a-month/Notes:

1. On Android, Angry Birds is given away free and derives revenue from Admob.
2. Episodic content cited as a reason why people keep continuing to play (and hence generating clicks).
3. To generate that amount of ad revenue will require 500 million downloads for most developers. That seems impossibly high. Either the numbers are wrong or they're getting much higher playing time & click-through rates than the average app out there.

Samsung Galaxy Tab "Ships" 1 Million Units

Source: tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/12/03/samsung-sells-a-million-galaxy-tabs-ups-2010-estimates-50/ 

Notes:

1. Smaller form factor compared to the iPad as a differentiating factor
2. However, there are suspicions of numbers being "shipped to retailers" rather than "sell-through"

How Android Changes the Competitive Landscape for Handset Manufacturers

Inspired by article: blogs.forbes.com/ciocentral/2010/11/12/android-%E2%80%93-a-tactical-friend-and-a-strategic-enemy/

1. Cycle time from the time Google releases a new version of Android to the time handset manufacturers release handsets is getting shorter and shorter
2. Manufacturers will increasingly find it difficult to compete on "time to market"
3. Instead, they will have to find other points of differentiation, such as industrial design, build quality, ergonomics etc.

Apple Now 4th Largest Phone Vendor

Link: www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1863205/apple-overtakes-rim-phone-sales

Key Points:

1. Apple now 4th largest phone vendor in the world
2. Just overtook RIM
3. Top 3 are Nokia, Samsung, and LG

Android Market Share Update

Link: www.enterprisemobiletoday.com/news/article.php/3910871/Android-Continues-to-Gobble-Up-Mobile-OS-Share.htm

Key Points:

1. 44% share of smartphone sold in Q3 (presumably in the US)
2. RIM dropped to 3rd place (22%)
3. Apple iOS at 23%

Android Developer Makes $1000 a Month from Ad Revenue

Link: www.geek.com/articles/mobile/indie-android-developer-shows-free-apps-can-generate-1000-monthly-2010118/

Took almost 500K downloads though. Achievable but not that easy either.

Admob Shares Conversion Rate Info

Post: groups.google.com/group/admob-advertiser-discuss/browse_thread/thread/fa00d0c1425e9f4e

Key points:

• Conversion rate for free apps (i.e. number of clicks to downloads) is around 10%
• Conversion rate for paid apps is around 1%

TechCrunch Article Showing How Much Money Free Apps Can Make

Link: www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/06/just-how-much-money-can-free-iphone-apps-make-quite-a-bit/
Key Points:

• Apps that get into the top 100 Free App list stand to make USD 400 to USD 5,000 per day.
• eCPM of USD 1.90 through AdWhirl and 2.6% CTR.

Comments in the article are informative (with lots of developers chipping in data from their own personal experience) and worth a read.

iPhone Pricing: A Developer's Opinion

Go Big or Go Free, so says David Edicillo.

www.davidedicillo.com/iphone/go-big-or-go-free-how-to-price-your-iphone-application/

According to him, there is a psychological barrier between paid and free and once that barrier is crossed, increases in price doesn't affect downloads as much as an app being free or paid.

Pinch Media Research About Paid Apps

Link to slides: www.slideshare.net/pinchmedia/paid-applications-on-the-app-store

• Estimates 600 million of 2 billion apps on app store are paid apps
• Estimates USD 900 million of revenue for developers
• Average paid app has:
  • 9300 downloads
  • USD 12,100 revenue (USD 8,500 to developer)
• BUT, the app store is extremely top heavy:
  • Top 10% performs way above average
  • 10 - 20 percentile performs exactly average
  • 20th percentile onwards perform way below average
• Number of downloads not linked to price point, but is sensitive to price changes.

List of Android Market Supported Countries

Tracked in this link here: www.google.com/support/androidmarket/bin/answer.py