Android’s 99-cent apps have gone from 60 percent of the Android paid apps to 37 percent. Apple, on the other hand, has not fared as well. During the same time period, the proportion of paid apps in the Apple App store dipped from 70 percent to 66 percent.
That bodes well for Google and the Android platform. Developers will run a greater chance of developing profitable apps, and these successful developers are critical to the Android platform in Google’s head to head battle with Apple for market share.
Prices in the Android market have also shifted upward. While more than 95 percent of the paid apps in the Android market are cheaper than $10 and 73 percent priced at $2.99, the number of apps priced higher than $10 has seen significant increase in the last six months.
“In support of recent handset shipment data covering Android’s tremendous growth, we found that even though there are more total apps in the Apple App Store, the Android Market’s relative growth rate is nearly three times that of the Apple App Store,” the study concluded. “If each market continues to grow at the same rate, the Android Market will have more apps than the Apple App Store by mid 2012.”
