More and more developers as of late have been choosing to focus their games on paid in-app purchases rather than having an upfront base cost. Most of these developers have been offering their games on the App Store as completely free downloads, with the hope that after downloading them, people will then pay for the game’s in-app purchases.
It turns out there’s good reason for this: analysis firm Distimo published statistics this week that show the breakdown in revenue made off iPhone apps on the App Store over the course of February. The stats show that 76% of all revenue made from iPhone apps from Apple’s App Store comes from in-app purchases. Of this 76%, 71% comes from apps that were a free download, while 5% is from apps that also included an up-front purchase cost. It’s clear after seeing these numbers why almost all of the games in the App Store’s top grossing list are freemium games made to profit off in-app purchases. The last 24% is money made from people actually paying for apps themselves, rather than in-app purchases.
February’s top grossing app was Clash of Clans, a freemium game. While the game is free for all to get, the app is able to generate $4.66 on average from users for each download. Of the top 10 highest grossing apps of February, the app with the lowest average for revenue made per download was What’s the Word?, with an average of $0.37 per download. The app with the highest average per download was Rage of Bahamut, which had each user dishing out on average $7.04.
It would be interesting to know what percentage of the money being made from in-app purchases came from the demon children that keep secretly racking up purchases on their parents’ credit card.
