A new report from App Annie Intelligence makes interesting reading for developers and publishers wondering whether to prioritise their investment in the Google Play or Apple iOS App Store ecosystems.
While Google has overtaken the Apple App Store for total downloads in Q2 2013, the Apple App store still pulled in 2.3x more money, showing average sales prices must be higher in the Apple ecosystem. Google Play saw about 10% more downloads than Apple’s store, according to the index.
According to the report, which also broke the figures down by geography, Russia has climbed six spots in the iOS App Store download rankings since Q2 2012 and broke into the top 5 in Q2 2013. This growth put Russia in the unique position as the only other country besides the United States in the top five countries by downloads for both the iOS App Store and Google Play.
Brazil climbed two spots and joined India and Russia in the top countries by downloads for Google Play, further establishing Google Play’s leadership position in those emerging markets.
In terms of which categories are proving popular, games continued to dominate the share of revenue for both app stores, and still accounted for a greater share in Google Play where it comprised over 80% of revenues vs. roughly 75% in the iOS App Store.
While country rankings remained relatively stable, there was significant movement in a number of categories during Q2 2013:
– The substantial growth of music and social networking apps helped drive iOS App Store revenue
– Communications apps surged to #2 behind games for Google Play downloads
– The travel & local category climbed two spots to #5 in the top categories by revenue for Google Play
Source: Q2 2013 App Annie Index, by App Annie Intelligence