iPhone App Store Numbers Reveal Large Revenue Opportunities

[MacRumors]

On Thursday, Apple provided developers with their first look at daily sales numbers. One developer generously shared her sales numbers with 9to5Mac.

Eliza Block is the author of a well reviewed crossword puzzle game called 2 Across [App Store]. To her surprise, the part time developer found that she had earned almost US $1800 on Wednesday alone for her crossword application. Daily stats are only available for the past few days, but the included screenshot reveals 428 sales of her game on July 30th. At an average sales price of $5.99 USD, she earned about $1797.60 that day. Sales figures for the other days available (3 total) were said to be comparable.

Three days of data, of course, is not enough to determine a long term trend, and the sales were likely partially skewed as 2 Across is currently listed amongst Apple's Staff Favorites in the iTunes Store. Also interesting is that Block's app was ranked 39th in the App Store, which means the developers for the 38th most popular app, TapeMeasure [App Store] must have been making over $300/day (428 x $.70) for their $0.99 application.

Now, the sales rate of these apps may not be sustainable depending on how much of their popularity is due to the newness of the App Store. Still, at least one major developer has acknowledged the potential of the App Store. Other Ocean, the developers behind the iPhone version of Sega's Super Monkey Ball, has announced that they have created a specialized iPhone division to dedicated resources for future iPhone development. Super Monkey Ball initially held the top spot amongst paid iPhone apps, but has since dropped to a respectable 7th.

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[sunfast]

That is a staggering amount of money! Apple must be delighted with their 30% cut from all of the sales.

[spydr]

Originally Posted by sunfast

That is a staggering amount of money! Apple must be delighted with their 30% cut from all of the sales.

People who were talking down about Apple taking a 30% cut should be able to see better now – how else on earth an application like TapeMeasure can earn $300 per day?! The arrangement is such a wonderful opportunity particularly for small developers – I am so glad to witness it.

I wish I knew some objective C++!

[Small White Car]

And just wait until all iPods (and possibly some mini-Mac-like tablet) can all run these apps. The market for these things is only going to grow. I suspect there will be more Mobile-OSX customers out there than Mac-OSX customers sometime within the next 5 years.

[jaison13]

i could retire on the app store with a few good apps. it's a gold mine. i'm not buying any new apps for a few months, i'm gonna wait for more apps at more competitive prices. these early apps will get the big revenue.

[fastbite]

I'm a total idiot! Why or why did I go into the Movie business instead of staying at home and learning how to do this stuff! Agrh!!!!!

[nottooshabby]

Originally Posted by jaison13

i could retire on the app store with a few good apps. it's a gold mine. i'm not buying any new apps for a few months, i'm gonna wait for more apps at more competitive prices. these early apps will get the big revenue.

I downloaded the SDK and wrote an app, now I am waiting to get approved to be a developer. Anybody have experience with how long this takes to get apple to take my $99 and let me upload my app? I want to upload it to my ipod and test it out which you can't do until you get approved. I only know c, but from the online resources and sample coding programs I was able to figure it out enough to get an app working. It probably took me a combined 48 hours of work to write something that somebody who knew objective c and the apple development toolscould have written in a half hour, but next time around it should be easier.

[Popeye206]

These sort of numbers and the 3rd party application program, tied with the ease of distribution, sales and marketing is what will make the iPhone unstoppable.

This is great news for developers and consumers too! It's exciting!

[Clive At Five]

Originally Posted by Zimpaz

Time to take up coding i think. What language are the apps written in?

Originally Posted by maehara

Objective C (IIRC, Cocoa is the name of the API framework Apple uses). I got as far as downloading the SDK and buying a few Objective C starter books back when the SDK was first released - seeing these figures makes me wish I'd knuckled down and learnt the dang thing...

My thoughts exactly. I got a book a couple weeks ago... Can't afford a new Mac but I'm thinking of installing Leopard on my cheapo Gateway laptop... T'would at least allow me to hack together a few lines of code, possibly leading my to submit an app, returning some revenue for me to buy a REAL Mac... imagine that!!!

-Clive

[WoFat]

I've signed up for the coders class at the Community College. Hope to have something ready for the Zune when MS awakes from hibernation and drags its' big fat bloated self out from the cage to give Apple the whoopin' it deserves.

[akm3]

It makes me sick to have missed out on this opportunity (From my lack of programming knowledge).

I think the 'real software developers' will quickly take over, and much like desktop land the big shots will crowd out the little guys.

Apple could also pull an eBay and make it less and less small guy friendly as it develops.

I hope the guy who made Band in England can retire though...That guy was cool.

[admanimal]

Originally Posted by akm3

I think the 'real software developers' will quickly take over, and much like desktop land the big shots will crowd out the little guys.

Hopefully it ends up like the Mac desktop platform, where there are a lot of relatively little guys who do pretty well for themselves (Panic, Delicious Monster, etc., etc.).

[twoodcc]

wow, i've got to start developing for the iphone!

[tpk2002]

I think I have a decent idea but have NO idea how to write a program. Not something I would expect money from, but I would certainly find it useful. Is there a way to have someone else write it for me or just give someone else the idea to see if they think it is a decent idea?

[arn]

Sorry. Corrected developer's name.

It's Eliza Block, not Erika Block.

arn

[The Tall One]

I want an iphone so bad. Can't get off of my Sprint contract without paying $400.00. Here's hoping Spring does something stupid like raise their text messaging rates again, and I can cancel early.

I did read about the surpreme court ruling those contract cancellation fees unconstitutional in California. Very interesting.

[Shasterball]

Not bad for part-time work!

[ejrizo]

i need to start developing.. need a ride on this Cash Cow

[BeyondtheTech]

Well, if you were to look on VersionTracker, you might be able to see how many downloads they got. I don't know if their number is based on how many link-throughs are from their site, of if they're pulling their numbers from another source.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/iphone/34757

It says 1284 downloads at the time of the post. At $9.99 a pop, they've netted $8979.01... seems kinda low IMO, but at least it's saying something.

[iOrlando]

Its all about costs...I really dont care how much revenue these people are bringing in.

I have no clue as to how much something like creating a crossword puzzle app cost. For apple, management has said the app store is not a profit making project...its just to break even and sell more iphones and touches.

For app developers...yes there will be winners..but for someone to start a whole company with future success based just on apps...i dont think they will be able to do that by selling 2.99 iphone apps. I just cant see it. I see it more or less for the big boys (sega) to start a iphone segment within the company, devote resources..hope to break even...and just be in the iphone space for future happenings.

yes, you can have one guy build a great app for under 50,000, and make a million, but to start whole companies around that....i cant see it yet (yet being the key word).

[ivladster]

Originally Posted by iOrlando

Its all about costs...I really dont care how much revenue these people are bringing in.

I have no clue as to how much something like creating a crossword puzzle app cost. For apple, management has said the app store is not a profit making project...its just to break even and sell more iphones and touches.

For app developers...yes there will be winners..but for someone to start a whole company with future success based just on apps...i dont think they will be able to do that by selling 2.99 iphone apps. I just cant see it. I see it more or less for the big boys (sega) to start a iphone segment within the company, devote resources..hope to break even...and just be in the iphone space for future happenings.

yes, you can have one guy build a great app for under 50,000, and make a million, but to start whole companies around that....i cant see it yet (yet being the key word).

LOL...you sound like the news when first Apple Store opened. They all said it would never work. Please consider that we're approaching 2010. Consider 12million iPhones with all those Apps running. And consider that those Apps can be updated for next iPhones. Pretty much sky is the limit. App store has the best marketing place.

RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE! On your Phone, while Wii or Xbox is always home.

You just underestimated apple.

=)

[marksman]

Originally Posted by iOrlando

Its all about costs...I really dont care how much revenue these people are bringing in.

I have no clue as to how much something like creating a crossword puzzle app cost. For apple, management has said the app store is not a profit making project...its just to break even and sell more iphones and touches.

For app developers...yes there will be winners..but for someone to start a whole company with future success based just on apps...i dont think they will be able to do that by selling 2.99 iphone apps. I just cant see it. I see it more or less for the big boys (sega) to start a iphone segment within the company, devote resources..hope to break even...and just be in the iphone space for future happenings.

yes, you can have one guy build a great app for under 50,000, and make a million, but to start whole companies around that....i cant see it yet (yet being the key word).

The economics sound good. Depends on what you are trying to do. The part-time crossword puzzle developer probably has almost no costs associated with development. Those kinds of results could turn her into a full time developer, creating more programs and making more money. Essentially growing a company on the back of an app store.

That is likely how you will see non-established companies become bigger. Ones that seed with a chunk of money will likely need applications that sell for more than a few dollars. It all depends though. If you can start a house and have 10 apps out there after a year, let's say, and they sell on average for $4.00 a piece, and you are selling 1000 total apps a day, that is 4,000 a day in revenue or 120k a month or 1.44 million a year. Certainly enough to run a small company or business.

The real interesting thing is when the iPhone has a base of 20 million and someone comes along with a killer app or game that they can sell for $20 a head, and they get 500,000 people to buy it. Sure apple will appreciate their 3 million dollar chunk, but the developers will be sitting on 7 million dollars, and I don't think we are going to see any 7 figure development budget for iPhone exclusive apps for a long time. Yet we will likely see 7 figure revenues for apps probably withint 24-36 months.

[Buschmaster]

I hit the store on the 21st and it looks like I made over $1,000! Woo!

I'll have to continue to create new apps and hope that people keep hitting the store. Even my small little apps making money is very nice to see.

[Zimpaz]

Time to take up coding i think. What language are the apps written in?

[Eraserhead]

Originally Posted by Zimpaz

Time to take up coding i think. What language are the apps written in?

Cocoa.