IOS development as a lottery: 59% do not discourage costs
Everybody knows the success stories, as a lone developer launches an application for iPhone or iPad, it becomes a hit and brings a lot of money. But in the real world, the situation is different: in the App Store extremely high competition, and even the creation of an excellent program does not guarantee that you will pay back the costs.
According to statistics from the marketing company App Promo, 59% of apps on the App Store do not pay back development costs, and 80% of developers cannot rely on the App Store as their only source of income. Although the marketing firm App Promo is a concerned person, such results of the survey are similar to the truth. Some independent developers say that in fact the figure of 59% looks even understated, and more real - 85% or 90%, to be honest with the cost of development.
Perhaps, for many iOS developers, it is more profitable to make custom projects for companies with large budgets than to independently launch paid applications and sell them.
The results of their research company App Promo published in the form of infographics.
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The publication Ars Technica gathered the views of several developers and experts on how realistic it is to build a business on paid applications in the App Store. They agree that this business can in some sense be compared with a lottery. A new application in the catalog is almost impossible to find if it does not fall into the list of Top-100 or Top-200. Thus, there is a weak link between the effort spent on development, the quality of the application - and its future success.
Approximately the same situation in other businesses with high competition, for example, in the book publishing and music business, even in Internet start-ups. Most new books / music albums do not pay back the cost of creating them, and only a small number become bestsellers. You can call it a “lottery”, but in fact it is a natural result of high competition, where “luck”, that is, unpredictable factors, decides a lot.
Initially, it is very difficult to predict the success of an application in the App Store, and even an investment in promotion does not guarantee success. According to App Store statistics, 91% of developers understand the need for investment in promotion, but in fact 52% do not invest a single cent in it.
Development costs are thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, plus marketing. It is difficult to recoup such amount, based on the price of the application at $ 0.99 - in reality, it is 70 cents for the developer. Often there are problems in high user expectations: they used to pay $ 20-30 for a desktop program from an independent developer, but the App Store quickly accustomed them to the price of $ 0.99-1.99, even this is a high barrier for customers, many of whom prefer Download free alternative. If someone raises the price above the standard price of 1-2 dollars, then you can get critical feedback from users and journalists.
Another problem that the developers are talking about is the poor “visibility” of the App Store applications in Google search results, unless you make special efforts for SEO optimization.
Developers are also turning to Apple with a request to develop some mechanism for publishing demo versions of programs with a limited duration of work (for example, 30 days).
According to statistics from the marketing company App Promo, 59% of apps on the App Store do not pay back development costs, and 80% of developers cannot rely on the App Store as their only source of income. Although the marketing firm App Promo is a concerned person, such results of the survey are similar to the truth. Some independent developers say that in fact the figure of 59% looks even understated, and more real - 85% or 90%, to be honest with the cost of development.
Perhaps, for many iOS developers, it is more profitable to make custom projects for companies with large budgets than to independently launch paid applications and sell them.
The results of their research company App Promo published in the form of infographics.
')
The publication Ars Technica gathered the views of several developers and experts on how realistic it is to build a business on paid applications in the App Store. They agree that this business can in some sense be compared with a lottery. A new application in the catalog is almost impossible to find if it does not fall into the list of Top-100 or Top-200. Thus, there is a weak link between the effort spent on development, the quality of the application - and its future success.
Approximately the same situation in other businesses with high competition, for example, in the book publishing and music business, even in Internet start-ups. Most new books / music albums do not pay back the cost of creating them, and only a small number become bestsellers. You can call it a “lottery”, but in fact it is a natural result of high competition, where “luck”, that is, unpredictable factors, decides a lot.
Initially, it is very difficult to predict the success of an application in the App Store, and even an investment in promotion does not guarantee success. According to App Store statistics, 91% of developers understand the need for investment in promotion, but in fact 52% do not invest a single cent in it.
Development costs are thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, plus marketing. It is difficult to recoup such amount, based on the price of the application at $ 0.99 - in reality, it is 70 cents for the developer. Often there are problems in high user expectations: they used to pay $ 20-30 for a desktop program from an independent developer, but the App Store quickly accustomed them to the price of $ 0.99-1.99, even this is a high barrier for customers, many of whom prefer Download free alternative. If someone raises the price above the standard price of 1-2 dollars, then you can get critical feedback from users and journalists.
Another problem that the developers are talking about is the poor “visibility” of the App Store applications in Google search results, unless you make special efforts for SEO optimization.
Developers are also turning to Apple with a request to develop some mechanism for publishing demo versions of programs with a limited duration of work (for example, 30 days).
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/143424/
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