Comments on: Android Market Sales Follow-Up

By: Lewis P

Lewis P — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 01:39:18 +0000

To be honest as a consumer I think that paid apps should have 24hr return but you shouldn’t be allowed to get a full refund, maybe 50% developer keeps 50%. The way I see it is if theres a trial or demo version then you know if u like the full version developers deserve all the money for their great effort and support to the android market with out them iPhone apps wouldn’t be a success right?

By: Gaurav

Gaurav — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:19:42 +0000

One big issue that Google needs to resolve is allowing developers from many countries to sell applications. Right now, these developers either don’t develop for Android or simply put up “test” applications. There is no real motivation for them to develop for Android. If resolved, these developers will create many locale specific apps which will improve the quality and variety of apps on the Market.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:24:06 +0000

I purchase many, many appliacations. I like to support programmers, paid applications are generally better, and paid applications are likely to be upgraded.

If it were not for the 24 refund I would probably be more reluctant. I think I may have returned 2 or 3 programs, but I like the idea of being able to try it first.

By: Enderx

Enderx — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 01:27:51 +0000

As an android hacker, and someone running a ROM from xda, cyanogen’s 4.1.11.1, I would say that torrenting and pirating is probably pretty uncommon for android.

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:22:49 +0000

Very neat discussion going on, concerning the Android market place.

I would like to chime in with a few notes. I work with FADE LLC – a new analytics company that specializes in video gaming digital markets – XBLA, WiiWare, iPhone and Android.

I don’t believe the Android market is as robust as the $5m/mo cited by some sources like AdMob. In July, games we tracked accounted for just ~$170,000 in revenue – a far cry from $5 million!

There are a lot of issues with the Android market right now, many of which have been stated. Functionality of the market is not very user-friendly at this point in time.

Support for paid apps, by country is also anemic. Only 8 countries are able to purchase paid apps. Not a very convincing number.

Another issue is that of the networks behind the Android and iPhone(s). The iPhone uses AT&T in the US, which some may argue about, but they do provide a better network than T-Mobile, which powers US Android devices. T-Mo has pretty bad 3G coverage, which may be detrimental to the purchaser’s experience. I know for myself, the Android market crashes constantly. and does not update very quickly using EDGE.

However, the potential for Android is still there. When it comes down to it, the core advantage for Android is that it will have a larger market share when it comes to handset penetration – once major players come on board, we should see handset penetration jump.

Also concerning sales numbers of handsets: Android has between 2 and 3 million handsets available, while the iPhone has roughly 45 million devices between the iPhone and iPod Touch.

By: Demio

Demio — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:19:40 +0000

I wish I could pay for applications in the Android Market.

Google hasn’t allowed Canadians ( and many, many other countries) access to paid applications yet – Which is extremely sad in my opinion.

If there is no way to purchase these premium paid applications, people will just resort to pirated versions of these apps because that is they only way to obtain them.

By: and

and — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:59:45 +0000

Found one here:
http://androidcommunity.com/android-holding-its-own-against-iphone-20090806/

By: and

and — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:48:12 +0000

Just wondering how many IPhones and Android phones are out there..Has someone got figures for that?

By: brad b

brad b — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:31:24 +0000

Regarding the return policy:

I am a developer and I agree the return policy is way to lax! Look, if we didn’t have this return policy, dev’s could just make FREE trail versions for people to try first. If they liked that, they download the paid one. Simple as that!

Right now they can download the paid one, try it, and return it.

This is why I dont have a trial version of my app out, because of two reasons: Firstly, you can already try it and if you dont like it just refund it, and secondly, if you look thru the market, almost every time you will see that trial apps vs. the paid app, have a much worse user rating. It’s because it’s being judged by limited features, etc. Usually the paid version of an app actually gets higher ratings!

So I see no need to soil the ratings of my program since people can download it and try it for now anyway.

However, if they went to “no refunds”, I could make a trial app that people could try, and have limited features, and probably get much better sale retention. IMO.

I think right now I’m around 67% or so retention.

Also, to jump in the info throng, I get average around $20-24 a day, some days after I release an update it will jump to $50 or so a day for a couple of days. But currently average about $15-$25 / day always lately.

-niko twenty

By: gc

gc — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:59:39 +0000

Something to consider, the number of downloads isn’t necessarily the best metric to determine popularity. For that matter, popularity isn’t necessarily the best metric to determine an applications ranking. Which is more popular in this example? An application with 1000 downloads and 50% retention or an application with 500 downloads and 100% retention? I’d consider them of equal popularity with the distinction that the first is simply more enticing – for whatever reason. Now consider, what if the first is rated four stars and the second is rated five? In my opinion, the second should be rated more popular.

And for pay apps, popularity should include a simple multiplier of downloads and cost. If an application costs $5.00 and is downloaded one time (scored 5), it should be considered as popular as an application downloaded five times but which costs a dollar (scored 5). From there its voted rating should further weight its ranking.

Of course I doubt Google will consider such a scheme which allows applications to better compete but wishing never hurts.

Lastly, IMO, only pay apps should rise to the top of the “Just In” list. Far, far, far too many useless or generally low quality yet free applications completely drown out commercial offerings. Google should provide this mechanism to effectively promote commercial developers who update their applications. And while I understand the possible negative implications, reasonable limits can be assigned. Even if caps/limits were not implemented, it would still be a significant improvement over what Google currently provides.