Android vs iOS : A side by side look at freemium gaming on both platforms
Everywhere we go we read about the battle between Android and iOS. It’s simply impossible to get away from the conversation of which platform is better, where’s the money, which monetizes better, what the cost of porting is and even which OS is sexier… Setting all the noise aside I wanted to do a simple comparison to see what the actual popularity is for freemium on each platform.
In my search I choose to do a simple count of the top grossing free apps. I also segregated the counts out by relative deck placement (i.e. top 10 apps vs. top 200).
iOS has twice the amount of freemium apps in the top 200 grossing yet both have similar ratios in the top 10 grossing. What does this tell me? Freemium opportunities on Android exist, but the market has yet to meet the demand. See below for full details.
Why go freemium on Android?
Beyond the fact that freemium has exploded on iOS, there are many other reasons to go freemium on Android. The first and foremost reason to move your business model to Android is due to the rampant increase in piracy. I have heard multiple horror stories from AAA premium developers that for every 1 paid install they are seeing 100 pirated installs…. Ouch!
Other reasons for going freemium on Android include cost of user acquisition. Predictable user acquisition and discoverability is far worse in the Androids market comparable to iOS. Going free allows for a greater opportunity to increase distribution without risking cash for means of unknown distribution sources.
Do you have a question about freemium gaming or a topic you’d like us to explore? Let us know in the comments or catch us on twitter @rechargestudios or @w3i.
Matthew Tubergen, Product Manager, Recharge Studios, W3i, LLC
Matt is a mobile content expert with a decade of experience working with brands that include Disney, NFL and LucasArts. Matt heads up W3i’s wholly owned publishing arm and investment fund, Recharge Studios.
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June 9th, 2011 at 12:40 pm
I don’t know if it’s a change in how they report ‘top grossing’ or just the naturally volatile nature of app-world, but I just ran a check on the Android Top Grossing apps and I found some very different numbers:
Of top 10, 9 were Freemium
Top 25, 16
Top 50, 24
Top 100, 31
Maybe you’re actually separating freemium (in-app purchases) from ad-supported free apps. But I don’t know how Google measures ad-supported, so I think those numbers are right.
September 22nd, 2011 at 8:42 am
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October 2nd, 2011 at 8:57 am
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October 3rd, 2011 at 11:19 am
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