According to Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray (insert grain of salt here), Apple’s iOS is taking in the lion’s share of lifetime app revenue, and Google’s Android is making roughly an order of magnitude less. Are you shocked by this report? You shouldn’t be. Gene also estimates that only 1.3 percent of Android apps are for-pay while iOS sits at about 13.5 percent.
So, Android apps make about 7 percent of total lifetime mobile app revenue while iOS apps take between 85 and 90 percent. What does that mean as far as cash is concerned? Well, since the start of 2011, iOS apps have taken in roughly 3.4 billion USD. Android apps, by comparison, have made less than 240 million USD.
Gene then goes on to predict that Apple will continue to keep the lead in mobile app revenue for the next couple of years. He says they’ll be somewhere around the 70 percent area, but I’ll bet Apple would be more than happy to prove him wrong. Analysts, as I’m sure you know, are notoriously bad at accurately making Apple-related predictions.
Frankly, I hope that the Android market starts sucking less. Maybe Amazon’s Android app store combined with the entry of Android tablets that aren’t awful might mean developers can start making money on non-Apple app stores. That’d be a nice change of pace, eh? In any case, it just goes to show that marketshare isn’t everything. iOS devs will continue to rake in the dough, and there is no end in sight. From Apple’s perspective, Android can just keep on “Winning” for all they care.
Source: Fortune
