strange iPhone app sales sumbers, whats wrong here ?

[macrowillson]

Hi,

I noticed that we have only 1% of the sales counted in iTunes connect whilst the report on our server is a hundred times higher (the application sends once a http request due the application's start). I filtered Taiwan and similar countries already out from the apache access_log, also ip duplicates. In fact there are only this unique requests in the access_log.

Do you have any explanation for this ? Believe me, I investigated the logs very carefully and I am watching the logs in realtime. All application requests are unique and come from many countries.

Strange too, I removed our app just for fun from Taiwan app store. Even after it disappeared from their store, the application requests just went on.
thanks,
g

ps, if it helps I can post all the logs here as well. You will see, its just doesn't makes sense.

 

[psonice]

Piracy?

 

[macrowillson]

thanks and yes, in the case of Taiwan it pretty much looks like, with other countries not really because, we for instance 3 reported sales from Apple in the united states, but 15 logged on the server, in 2 days. However, I am investigating the topic here : http://www.iwillapps.com/wordpress/?p=70. Are there out of the box solutions ready yet ?

Thanks so much, loving this forum !

 

[psonice]

Remember the sales reports are 1 day behind, so if you've sold the rest of the copies in the last 24 hours it would explain the difference.

I've not bothered putting anti-piracy stuff into my apps yet - after thinking it through plenty I've come to the conclusion that it's not always worth the hassle. If I sell 1000 copies of an app, and another 3000 copy it, most likely I've only really lost 30 sales (many of the pirates will 'try before they buy' and purchase anyway, others wouldn't even consider buying an app ever). Countering that, I have 3000 people using the app, and hopefully showing it to their friends, many of whom will buy it. I.e. it's good marketing.

If you can put advertising in for cracked versions, that's definitely good. If your app connects to a server and uses that heavily, you're effectively paying for the cracked copies and it's time for a crackdown

 

[macrowillson]

yep, I am almost finished reading with related blogs, and you're right, I should understand it as promotion for free !
thanks guys,
g

 

[CylonGlitch]

Another thing to remember, that although you may sell 3 copies, those three people may download it multiple times. I know that whenever I guy an app, I download it from my phone, my work computer, my home computer and often my office computer. That's 4 different downloads from different IP addresses and different domains. To you, they will look like 4 different "sales". But that is just the first time I get the app; many times I will delete it one place or another and remember to download it again later. But at the most, would be no more then 10 times (although 4 is more common). A 100x difference, I don't know; that's a lot.

 

[macrowillson]

yep, I thought about this one-to-many install thing, I couldnt of course filter this out, so the 100x thingy is indeed strange.

 

[psonice]

Multiple downloads only count as a single sale in the reports. It's when you install the app on multiple devices that it's going to affect the figures - e.g. i have 2 iphones and an ipod touch on a single account. That's potentially 3 active users on your server, but 1 app sale.

Then again, there's a limit of 5 devices I think, so worst theoretical case is 5x more users than sales. And realistically, the average devices per account is going to be low, surely less than 2, likely under 1.5.

 

[macrowillson]

Multiple downloads only count as a single sale in the reports. It's when you install the app on multiple devices that it's going to affect the figures - e.g. i have 2 iphones and an ipod touch on a single account. That's potentially 3 active users on your server, but 1 app sale.

Then again, there's a limit of 5 devices I think, so worst theoretical case is 5x more users than sales. And realistically, the average devices per account is going to be low, surely less than 2, likely under 1.5.

allright, may you can help me in another 'report' issue. I just opened the 3th party report service "app nannie" right now and it tells me about yesterday, I am featured in 176 stores in the category Utilities(iPhone|iPad) but in iTunes and on the device I can't find our app in featured. Sorry guys, to bother you with this newbie stuff, but I got a bit confused over the time.

thanks for your time,Guenter

 

[psonice]

You need to know 'where' it's featured. It might be featured in india, but not your own country, or it might be featured only in 'new + noteworthy' in the app's second category. App annie seems to tell you where it's featured at least.

Btw, you can change country in itunes on the desktop - scroll to the bottom in the store and click on the flag.

 

[macrowillson]

yes, that's exactly what I did. It got featured by its 1st category. I did read that the app store team selects usually every 14 days apps. May be the apple servers will sync this information next Thursday(according to rumours on gigacom) or so, well, I will see.

thanks so much, that helped