Paid Apps Work on an Apple Platform, for Google Not So Much
Posted on 01. Sep, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey in Features, Tips
The key incentive driving most application developers is this: will I make any money? Sure, some will develop apps for fun, but the vast majority that drive quality applications are going to do it for money. While this appears to be a profitable enterprise for those working on an Apple platform, it doesn’t appear to be as lucrative for Android. Take this chart provided by Business Insider.
What is the main factor driving this discrepancy? Back in March, I wrote a piece for ReadWriteWeb discussing how Google needs more content and more platforms to drive advertising sales. Because of this they embrace a culture of giving things away. Although Apple was once of the mantra “Rip. Mix. Burn”, it’s clear that they want to charge for everything on their closed platform.
And there’s nothing wrong with Apple doing that. They don’t have the same type of advertising strategy in place that Google does. Judging by the chart above, Google plans on a hefty ad-supported model for applications going forward.
What does this mean for the Chrome Web Store, slated to launch next month? While Apple takes a juicy 30% share of paid app revenue from developers on their platform, for the Web Store Google will only take 5% for browser-based webapps. There are two ways to look at that: for one, Google appears confident that they will be able to make money from an ad-supported model.
The other is that the company is creating an incentive for developers to create paid apps where they get 95% of revenue as opposed to 70% using the conventional Apple strategy that other application directories are following. The question is, will people pay for applications on a traditionally free web-based model or will it mostly be ad-supported?
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Video: Chrome Web Store Licensing API | thechromesource - Google Chrome and Chrome OS News and Resources
04. Sep, 2010
[...] still not sure how many paid apps are going to be successful in the Chrome Web Store based on data from the Android Market. Nevertheless, expect to see more information for developers on getting their apps submitted prior [...]