Some of the key insights and graphs from Developer Economics 2012 - presented at LeWeb London (June 20 2012). You can download the full report at www.DeveloperEconomics.com
4. 10
The new pyramid of
handset maker competition.
In the new pyramid of handset maker competition, Apple leads innovators,
Samsung leads fast-followers, ZTE leads assemblers and Nokia leads the
feature phone market..
Page 4
6. 9
The next 10 million apps
BRIC markets will drive app demand an order of magnitude
larger as their smartphone penetration increases. The next 10
million apps are not going to come from the current leading
markets, but from BRIC demand for localised apps.
Page 6
8. 8
Tablets are now a
mainstream screen for developers
Irrespective of platform, more than 50% of developers are now
targeting tablets, with iOS developers most likely (74%) to do so.
Page 8
10. 7
Windows Phone is the new cool
Interest among developers continues to build up. 57% of
developers, irrespective of platform, plan to adopt
Windows Phone
Page 10
12. 6
Mass exodus from second runners
BREW (Qualcomm), Bada (Samsung), BlackBerry (RIM) are
being rapidly abandoned. The developer exodus is a much greater
and measurable testament to the decline than any other market
indicator.
Page 12
14. 5
One in three developers live
below the “app poverty line”
The average per-app revenue is in the range of $1,200-
$3,900 per month. An app has a 35% chance of generating
$1 – $500 per month, which means that one in three
developers live below the “app poverty line”
Page 14
16. 4
Developers struggle to
identify the right revenue model
There are 11 revenue models to pick and mix from, from
pay-per-download to product placements. In-app
purchasing generating on average 24% more revenue than
pay-per-download, 63% more than freemium and 78%
more than advertising.
Page 16
18. 3
iOS most expensive platform
to develop on at $27,000 per app
iOS apps are costing 21% more than Android and 81% more
than Blackberry to make. The average app will take
approximately three man-months to develop.
Page 18
20. 2
The imbalance between
spoken vs. app languages
85% of developers publishing in English address just 8%
(around 500 million) of the world population speaking
English, while Chinese, spoken by 22% of the world
population, only attracts 16% of developers.
Page 20
22. 1
Mapping the global app trade routes
Developers in North America see relatively small demand from
other regions, with Europe being their top export region. Latin
America and Asia have a large share of developers (44% and 38%)
that do not see high local demand - developers there mostly export
apps to North America and Europe.
Page 22
28. About this research
Sample:
1,500+ respondents to online
survey, plus 20 one-to-one
qualitative interviews with
developers. Majority of
respondents from Europe, but
overall sample was global (83
countries)
Methodology:
Responses were normalised
across all top 7 platforms –
defined as the platforms
identified as ‘primary’ be
respondents (Android, iOS,
mobile web, Windows Phone,
BlackBerry, Qt, Java ME)
Page 28