Paid iPhone Applications Tend To Top Rankings Longer Than Free Apps

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Jun 1, 2010

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App store analytics startup Distimo just released its May report, and zoomed in on the average number of days applications across various categories maintain their top rankings in Apple’s App Store. Analyzing data collected from November 2009 to April 2010, the company found that paid applications in the Top Overall, Games, Business and Entertainment categories stay in these categories for 27, 39, 59 and 38 days on average, respectively.

Free applications stay in the Top 100 for a significantly shorter time in those categories, with 19, 21 and 39 days on average, respectively. The exception to the rule seems to be the Entertainment category, in which free apps stay in the Top 100 for a slightly longer period of time than paid applications; 43 days compared to 38 days.

The likely reason: there are approximately three times as many paid apps for the iPhone than there are free ones, so there’s less competition in the gratis segment.

In the App Store, the majority of paid applications that have been in the Top 100 Overall during the entire period of 6 months measured fall into the Games and Entertainment categories. The paid applications that have been in the Top 5 for the longest period of time are Doodle Jump (140 days), RedLaser (73 days) and Skee-Ball (68 days).

The paid application that has been number one for the longest period of time is Skee-Ball (24 days). The free applications that have been in the Top 5 for the longest period of time are Facebook (12 days) and Paper Toss (7 days).

Zooming in on the iPad, the highest ranked paid iPad application in the Apple App Store in April 2010 was Pages, followed by GoodReader for iPad and Pinball HD. The highest ranked free iPad application in the Apple App Store was iBooks, followed by The Solitaire and Break HD Free.

CrunchBase Information

Distimo

Information provided by CrunchBase

http://technshare.com Dev | Blogging Tips

I think people love paid ones then free one :D. Btw. iPhone apps are really awesome.

Thanks !!
http://twitter.com/Popple3 @Popple3

Which is exactly why Google needs to get their act together and launch paid apps worldwide instead of a few select countries
William Palmer

Strange that the free apps listed are mostly useful, and the paid apps listed are mostly time wasting games.

That tells me so much about the people using the iPhone, and the type of user it gets.
Nick

Robin, you might want to reach for that second cup of coffee:

"The likely reason: there are approximately three times as many paid apps for the iPhone than there are free ones, so there’s less competition in the gratis segment."

Slightly backwards, isn't it? If there's less competition among the free apps, they should stay on top longer.
http://john.marsland.org John marsland

Does anyone have a sense how apple de-cerelates top ranking apps? Eg, if an app gets 100k downloads a day, it’ll climb quickly thruu the ranks but gradually begin to lose rank even if downloads remain the same
andy

Yes this is interesting. Best part is they make more money too, DUH! I hired an iPhone developer to create an app too actually and made almost $20,000 already over 6 months. Initial investment was $5,000.

Found the developer at http://www.getappquotes.com – cool site for finding iPhone developers, and learning how to market your app once it's made!
Meh.

It's been a well-known fact that iPhones are consumer-focused products. It's why there are people who still don't see the need for them and go Blackberry/Palm.
Meh.

Not necessarily. Less competition amongst free apps means less innovation, while the paid apps are competing and constantly getting better. The end result would be that you would use these paid apps more because they're overall better products. But there's also that giant variable that's "How much do you take into account the fact that these people use paid apps more because they paid for them?"
Dedos

I will venture and say that the reason Free Applications stay in the top rank a shorter period of time is because they are free and people then to just get more free applications than paid ones….. you need less people to truck a free app from the top spot……
Sanjay

Nice spam.
http://www.distimo.com Remco van den Elzen

Nick, that part refers to the Entertainment category, where free applications do remain in the top ranking list longer.
http://www.idreamsky.com Michael

With App Store discovery an ever present problem, Our has come up with a neat app iGameDock (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/igamedock/id373239991?mt=8) that could help developers gain some attention.
http://twitter.com/sammuelcen @sammuelcen

Firstly, the paid one do not ask for really big sum of money and secondly, the paid apps are usually better designed and programmed than the free ones…
Amanda

My favorite iPhone app is the Career Test.. It’s super easy to use and even though it was $.90 I was pleasantly surprised with my career path results. http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/career-test/id3537...
http://nabendu.googlepages.com Nabendu Sinha

It’s more difficult to be top list now with so much competition.

As a developer, I feel external websites have now more power than Apple sub-category featured apps. My App ‘Shoot A Letter’ was featured by Apple but couldn’t see download got increased because of that.
http://theelwinpost.blogspot.com Benjamin

i just did a review of my top paid apps, check it out if you wish! feel free to add comments and let me know what yours are.

http://theelwinpost.blogspot.com/2010/08/top-5-paid-iphoneipod-touch.html

Paid apps last longer in my opinion because you always get what you pay for. Paid apps are usually better then free, and free apps are usually short with little to no updates.