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Zoya Street
Home   >   spreadsheet   >   Google Play leads iOS for downloads, and other market data

Google Play leads iOS for downloads, and other market data

By on November 1, 2013
FlickrCC image by Claudia Regina

We’ve made another small update to our benchmark data pages, with new figures on how games big and small acquire, retain and monetise their users. Plus, we’ve added some new information about how Android and iOS compare in terms of downloads and revenues. The details are below, with links to the pages where we have been collecting this data for the past two years.

Subway Surfers

Has 175 million downloads, 5.5 billion play sessions, 9 months in the top-50 grossing chart and a 30 day retention rate of 70%. (source: Forbes, 06/05/2013)

Candy Crush

The average paying Candy Crush user spends $40 a year. The game monetises around 8 percent of its total player base. (source: Pocketgamer)

Kongregate

Best of British: “My games make $1 per 1,000 plays… I’ve been uploading some of my mini-games to Kongregate for just over 18 months now and I have a total of six games on there with around 5,000 plays. This has generated about $15 in advertising revenue, of which my cut is about 35 percent, or approximately $5″. (source: Pocketgamer, 2/8/2013)

Pixel This

4.46% of Pixel This players spend money. (source: Twitter, 8/10/2013)

Bigger trends

On the market size of different mobile platforms: Google Play led the iOS App Store in downloads by about 10% in Q2 2013 and Google Play has since expanded that lead to about 25% in Q3 2013… Although the iOS App Store generated about 2.1x the app revenue of Google Play in Q3 2013, their lead has shrunk since Q2 2013 when their revenue was about 2.3x higher.
(source: Appannie, October 2013)

Apple App Store now accounts for 65 percent of total revenues globally, with Google Play gaining ground rapidly in the last six months with 35 percent market share. Much of this revenue development is due to the success of games monetization across all countries, accounting for 71 per cent of total revenues.
(source: Distimo, October 2013)

About Zoya Street

I’m responsible for all written content on the site. As a freelance journalist and historian, I write widely on how game design and development have changed in the past, how they will change in the future, and how that relates to society and culture as a whole. I’m working on a crowdfunded book about the Dreamcast, in which I treat three of the game-worlds it hosted as historical places. I also write at Pocketgamer.biz and The Borderhouse.