Which parts of the world love mobile apps the most
With 2.6 million apps available and 150 billion app downloads, Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store have come a long way since their 2008 launch. With more developers than ever before and smartphone penetration on a rise in emerging and developing countries, the mobile economy is booming.
However, this also makes for an intensely competitive landscape for app developers. One in which it is easy to get lost in the maelstrom of apps. As a developer looking to acquire users or monetize your app, it is imperative that you have data to back your mobile strategy.
As we sifted through the heaps of data at InMobi, we unearthed some gems of insights developers could use. Due to the sheer number of these, we decided to spread them over a series of four blogs. Here’s the first one.
Regionally Your’s
The developing Asia Pacific region had the largest shares of both ad impressions (49%) and app installs (47%), followed by North America. The latter region also continued to be the land of both the highest earnings (eCPM) and costs (CPI), closely followed by Europe.
The key to garnering high app installs as well as great eCPMs is for developers to strike a balance between mature First World markets, and the buoyant, developing markets of Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Latin America.
The world of Android and iOS
Android continued to rule the ad impressions and app installs market, especially in Latin America (87% share) and Asia Pacific (66% share). App developers earned the most from iOS apps all around the world, especially in North America and Europe. But, to modify Stan Lee’s famous quote, with with great earnings come great costs. Not surprisingly, iOS apps in North America and Europe also saw the highest install costs.
Android is already a powerhouse with a wide user base. But the reach of high-monetizing iOS can only increase from now. Only time will tell how this duopoly will play out.
Stay Tuned!
In part one of this series, we saw that 2014 was year that clearly cemented iOS as the top-earning platform for developers, despite Android phones outselling their Apple counterparts. We also saw that the North America region earned developers the most (and also cost them the most). But developing regions began to flex their muscles. The unsaturated, cheaper markets of Asia Pacific, Africa, and Latin America have tremendous untapped potential.
But how should developers go about doing this? What are the key metrics to consider when looking to monetize? In other words, how do the dynamics of the app economy work? For all this, and more, stay tuned for the next part in this series!
