Russian version of "Developer Economics 2013"

From the publishers: Colleagues, we present to you the Russian edition of the magnificent study of Developer Economics 2013. We have prepared a Russian translation of this study and hope that it will be useful to you in your work. Thank!

Developer Economics 2013 is the fourth study of development economics. This report focuses on developer tools, explores six sectors: advertising networks and intermediary platforms, backend-as-a-service, cross-platform tools, cross promo networks, user analytics and voice services.

We also took a closer look at critical issues for developers, such as the most popular platforms, HTML5 features and problems, cross-screen development, profit models, monetization potential and much more. Data from this report is based on an online survey of more than 3,400 developers and 20 interviews undertaken in October 2012. Our sample is truly global, with a balanced representation of North America, Europe and Asia, as well as a significantly smaller number of developers from Africa, Oceania and Latin America.
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We hope that this report will give you an internal look at the latest trends in mobile design and an understanding of the rules of the new application economy emerging around applications and ecosystems. We hope that you will enjoy reading it - the same as we got from writing it!

Key facts

All of the above is based on a recent survey of VisionMobile 3460 developers in 95 countries, balanced from North America, Europe and Asia, supplemented by interviews with developers and their research.

Duopoly mobile market

The mobile phone industry grew by 23% over last year. Despite the troubles that have surrounded many manufacturers of mobile devices, the industry is constantly growing, adding to the profits of 23% annually. At the heart of this growth, increasing sales of smartphones, which now account for more than 40% of all phone sales, are fueled by cheap Android devices that quickly absorb the market share of futures phones.

The game duopoly. 700 million smartphones sold in 2012 strengthened the Google / Apple duopoly in the world of mobile platforms, receiving together more than 80% of the attention of mobile developers. This is underlined by the Samsung and Apple duopoly as phone manufacturers, their total share in the smartphone market reaches 46% and they get 98% of the industry’s total profits among 8 leading OEMs. Excluding Apple, the total revenue for the mobile phone industry is at the 2009 level, which means that Apple is reaping all the value-added applications in the mobile computing industry based on applications, which it actually generated.

At the same time, Samsung seized the remaining value, quickly turning from the gatekeeper in the futures service to becoming the leader of the smartphone market, taking away the profits of the old guard represented by Nokia, which slowly responded to the changed competition base - from the best phones to the best applications.

Samsung's profit recipe. As the number one phone manufacturer in 2012, the huge success of Samsung with Android smartphones is based on three different elements: first, on owning the production of most expensive components, which gives the company both the earliest availability and the lowest prices. Secondly, the fastest time to market with new smartphones based on the latest Android versions. Third, the strong Galaxy brand and marketing campaigns that differentiate Samsung from the crowd of other Android manufacturers.

Tablets are still sold 3 times worse than personal computers, but they are projected to reach parity in the next year or two. This will be a critical inflection point for the duopoly of personal computers in the face of Intel and Microsoft, whose dominant positions in computing are seriously promoted by the mobile market, where Android dominates as a platform, and those based on ARM Qualcomm and Mediatek dominate chipsets.

Platforms: the haves and have-nots

Developers are swarming around iOS / Android, but continue to look into viable alternatives. After gaining a dominant position in the consumer market, Android continues to occupy a leading position in the attention of developers, 72% of developers are now working on the platform, 4 percentage points more than in the 2012 survey. iOS showed a 5-point drop in the Mindshare index, which we mainly associate with the influence of Asian developers showing their full commitment to Android. Attention developers vary from region to region, Android leads in Asia and Europe, while North America shows platform parity. A significant proportion of mobile developers intend to adopt Windows Phone (47%) and BB10 (15%), which indicates that developers still have an interest in a third viable application ecosystem.

HTML is the main unifying technology for the Android-iOS duopoly. HTML is the third most popular choice among developers, 50% of whom use HTML-based technologies as a deployment platform (creating mobile web applications) or as a development platform (creating hybrid applications or HTML code translated into native applications). In general, HTML is much more successful as a technology, and not as a platform, led by Firefox OS (and webOS before it), which became the main web-based attempt to create a complete alternative to iOS and Android, including native platform APIs and methods of distribution and monetization applications. HTML should not be viewed as a competitor, but more as an addition to the original platforms, as something that smooths the differences, reducing the entry and exit barriers of these platforms.

Windows Phone: buy it and it will come. Developers' attention to Windows Phone with a 21% rate remained unchanged, despite the very high intentions of adoption in our previous survey of 2012. It seems that the developers are waiting for the right signal from the market - reaching a critical mass of devices - before starting to invest in the platform. Despite the difficulties with Windows Phone, Microsoft is positioning Windows 8 as a tablet platform, and thanks to a powerful strategy for updating Windows licenses, the company can change the market share figures to its advantage.

Attention developers to the BlackBerry remains stable with 16%, developers expect sales to start BB10. Moreover, the Intentshare indicator, i.e. Developers' plans for the adoption of BlackBerry, did not fall from our last year's survey, which shows the positive impact of all RIM propaganda on the eve of the launch of BB10. Attention to Symbian, on the other hand, dissolves quickly and predictably, as in the case of Samsung Bada, and this despite the fact that sales of the platform outpace sales of Windows Phone in Q3 2012.

78% of developers use 2+ platforms at the same time, but the money is concentrated in iOS / Android. At the same time, the choice of platforms by developers is now declining. On average, mobile developers use 2.6 mobile platforms, the current survey showed, while in 2012 there were 2.7, and in the 2011 survey 3.2. 80% of respondents in our sample are developing for Android, iOS or both platforms, which makes them the foundation of any set of platforms. Developers who do not develop for one of these platforms, receive, on average, half of the income from those who develop, which leaves no doubt that all power is concentrated in these two main systems.

Most developers choose the first iOS platform. iOS is the clear winner in the shootout against Android series, for 42% of Apple / Google developers, iOS is a priority, against 31% for Android. The decision on the “leading platform” is influenced by several factors, such as previous experience or local sales of smartphones, but iOS is clear winners over all other platforms at all competitive points, except for the price and the learning curve.

iOS, Android and BlackBerry - the leading platform. In our survey of 3460 developers, iOS turned out to be the most priority platform, 48% of iOS developers use it as the leading platform. iOS, Android and BlackBerry are leading platforms, that is, most often used as the main among their developers. Windows Phone and HTML extend platforms, as they are most often used by developers to extend the action of their application to those user segments or regions that are not covered by their main platform. At the tail of the developer’s preferences are Symbian, Qt, Flash and JavaME, which are used now simply to close the remaining market segments.

HTML5 needs the best native API and development environment. HTML5 is becoming a vital alternative to native development in such categories as “Business and Productiveness” (42% of HTML developers are used), Enterprise (32%) and Media (28%). In order to compete with native development, HTML5 needs better access to native APIs (35% of HTML developers), better development environment (34%) and better debugging system (22%). More importantly, even optimized HTML5 devices are not as important as accessing native programming interfaces or the development environment. This leads us to conclude that supporters of HTML, such as Facebook, Mozilla, and Google, should focus on cross-platform tools and development environments, at least put as much effort into them as in supporting the Facebook, Firefox OS and Chrome OS.

Attention developers to the tablet remains at the same level with smartphones, but TV is lagging behind. Most (86%) of the 3460 developers in our survey are targeting smartphones, most of them are also developing for tablets, iOS developers lead here (76%), who point to the attractiveness of the iPad as a platform for development and monetization. Development for TV remains rare (6% of Android developers), as the hype around the Smart TV is still in its infancy.

Princes and beggars

Steep earnings curve on applications. Developers can improve a lot in planning their business on applications. 49% of developers in our survey make applications that they want to use themselves, but ultimately receive less income. The most monetary strategy is one that expands the application vertically or geographically. To some extent, these strategies rely on already established and successful business applications that have already been tested and have proven their success in at least one market, in general, are less risky options or “low-hanging fruit” for developers.

Advertising is the most popular revenue model for apps, used by 38% of developers in the world. At the same time, this monetization model shows the lowest income per application. In-app purchases and freemium grow, increasing by 50% compared with 2012, and more than a quarter of developers are using them in our survey. In-app purchases are the second most popular revenue model for iOS, 37% of developers use it, which is slightly less than the payment for downloading.

Application development lacks consumer understanding. We find it remarkable that only 25% of the developers in our survey plan their applications based on discussions with users, and this figure does not change with developer experience or professionalism. This shows that the bottleneck of the “do-measure-learn” cycle in development is precisely the “dimension” or understanding of its customers. In turn, this underlines the need for smooth two-way feedback channels between the developer and the consumer, similar to the ones that GetSatisfaction opened for web applications and which HelpShift now opens for mobile applications.

Tool landscape

Now there are more than 500 tools for application developers, designers and entrepreneurs. Over the past 3 years, developers have evolved from coders to innovators, designers and creators - consumers of good taste for hundreds of companies engaged in SDK economies, part of a large B2D (business to app developer) market. Developer expectations related to tools and services have changed in recent years in the wake of emerging startups, from Appcelerator to Zong. Application developers now have a choice of over 500 third-party tools (API, SDK, components) accompanying their development adventures at every step. Development tools, from ad networks to user analytics SDK, are the core of the economics of the Android and iOS platforms, and the main differentiator for them.

Advertising services dominate, other tools are fragmented. 90% of about 3460 developers in our survey use at least one third-party tool or service, the average is 1.47 tools at a time. Among the most popular services for developers are advertising services and exchanges (34% of developers), which reflects the popularity of advertising as the main business model. Advertising is not only the most popular earnings model, but can also serve as a promotion channel to facilitate the opening of an application. User analytics (28%) and cross-platform tools (27%) follow it, with a long tail from crash statistics, BaaS, cross promo networks and voice services.

Google AdMob is clearly the dominant advertising platform, which employs 65% of developers using advertising services. AdMob has recently also become an advertising exchange, which was aimed at neutralizing the threat posed by Google’s advertising exchanges. The second in this race, with 12% each, is Inneractive, an advertising exchange / intermediary, and InMobi, an advertising network that grew up in India and has become an important player in growing markets. Apple iAd is overall in fourth place with 11%, but despite its popularity among iOS developers, AdMob remains the leading advertising service on iOS, it is used by 66% of iOS developers from those polled by us.

PhoneGap and Appcelerator occupy the most attention of developers among more than 100 cross-platform tools. PhoneGap leads the ranking of such tools, it is used by 34% of developers, followed by Appcelerator and Adobe Air, with 21% and 19% of developers, respectively. With the availability of 100+ cross-platform tools, the choice for developers can be a daunting task. Among the differentiating features for cross-platform tools are access to native APIs, performance optimization and the ability to reproduce the native interface for each platform.

User Analytics Duopoly: Google (69%) and Flurry (49%) are well ahead of the competition. User analytics services are becoming increasingly important as a tool for optimizing application interactions and coverage, and serve as proxies for user feedback. User analytics services are more important for iOS developers - in our study, 39% of iOS developers use them, compared to 28% for Android, 25% for WP and 15% for BlackBerry. The use of analytics is an indicator of the level of competition among developers on different platforms.

Parse leads the way, occupying 28% of the developers' minds in the field of Backendas-a-Service tools, but the competition for second place is heating up, as BaaS is gaining popularity. Mobile applications are becoming increasingly complex and they increasingly need back-end functions, such as user management, social functions, or data synchronization with the cloud. The leader of attention Parse should be focused on enterprises CloudMine (11%). Sencha.io and AC, both received 10% each from developers using BaaS, are solutions that integrate well with their respective frameworks (Sencha and Appcelerator), and therefore do not directly compete with services such as Parse or StackMob. The Backend-as-a-service market is at an early stage and there are more than 30 vendors on it who strive to excel with constant innovation and the addition of new functions - we still do not see any service dominating here, as can be seen in other sectors of tools development, such as advertising services or user analytics.

TapJoy (53%) is the leader in cross promo networks, a survey of 3460 developers says, Flurry AppCircle (20%) and Chartboost (18%) follow it. Cross-promotion networks (CPN) are used by developers as a means of promoting their applications through the free exchange of traffic between applications, to advertise for pay-per-installation, or, in some cases, to encourage installation. CPNs are also used to generate revenue for publishers.

Voice API has not yet moved from the web to the mobile. While voice services satisfy the diverse needs of users, developers' attention to them is measured in one category, as voice interfaces are perceived by developers as a legacy of telephony, and they still have a long way to reach future voice applications. Twilio and Voxeo's voice leaders were very popular in web development circles; Twilio even over the end of 2011, in the Top 10 API providers, overtook Facebook, according to ProgrammableWeb. Nevertheless, these voice services have yet to make a big impact on mobile applications. Skype (telephone URI) and Microsoft (speech recognition and transcription) are used more often, followed by Twilio and Tropo API with conference calling, incoming / outgoing calls and voice portals. Telecom companies such as AT & T, Verizon, Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom also released their voice APIs in 2012 in an attempt to turn their phone assets into new revenue streams.

The universe of developer tools is expanding and consolidating. The Business to Developer (B2D) market has been constantly expanding over the past three years in the wake of B2D startups trying to meet the increasing demands of developers. 1000 1 . (, Flurry, Papaya ) (, Appcelerator Aptana, Cocoafish, Particle Code Nodeable, Apigee Usergrid Instaops, Burstly TestFlight, Flurry – Trestle).

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The entire report in PDF can be found on our website . Unfortunately, under the terms of our agreement with VisionMobile, we can not publish it outside our site.

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