distimo publication - november 2012

7/30/2019 Distimo Publication - November 2012

1/9

About Distimo

Distimo has a very clear objective: to make the app market transparent. The company was born out of

the frustration of a lack of insights into the performance of apps and the manual work needed to track

important metrics. Our goal is to provide the best and most actionable app intelligence for anyone who

wants to compete in the app market. Our data-driven team seeks to help developers, brands and financial

services companies gain actionable, timely and factual knowledge of whats happening daily in the global

app market. We offer three core services: App Analytics, to track all of your important app data across

all major app stores and ad networks; Conversion Tracking, to measure your full app sales funnel from

discovery and campaigns to app launch; and Market Data, to analyze the daily download and revenue

volumes of any app in the market.

Founded in 2009, Distimo is a privately held company based in The Netherlands. Follow us on Twitter, read

our blog or learn more at http://www.distimo.com.

Discover The Windows Store

By Gert Jan Spriensma, Analyst at Distimo

Distimo 2012, some rights reserved

Windows Store
http://www.distimo.com/app-analyticshttp://www.distimo.com/app-analytics#conversion-trackinghttp://www.distimo.com/market-datahttps://twitter.com/distimohttp://www.distimo.com/blog/http://www.distimo.com/blog/https://twitter.com/distimohttp://www.distimo.com/market-datahttp://www.distimo.com/app-analytics#conversion-trackinghttp://www.distimo.com/app-analytics


2/9

Distimo Publication - November 2012

Distimo 2012, some rights reserved.All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Windows 8 was released for general availability to the public on October 26, 2012. With

the launch of Windows 8, the Windows Store now enables customers to easily download

and update software on the system. This is already common practice on all mobilephones, however, there is one main difference: downloading third party applications

on the Web is much more difficult and is disabled on many mobile phones (iOS and

Windows Phone 7), and many consumers were used to finding software online on their

PC. The app stores have proven to drive a lot of downloads, so it will be very interesting

to see how the Windows Store will perform over the coming years.

We believe the Windows Store will become an important channel in digital software

distribution, which is why Distimo already supports this app store. Developers can

sign up here. This months publication focuses on the first month in business for the

Windows Store and compares it to other app stores.

The major findings are:

The daily download volume among the top 300 most popular applications in the

Windows Store is already three times higher than the volume among the top 300

most popular applications in the Apple Mac App Store. However, in terms of paid

volume only, the Apple Mac App Store is still doing much (5 times) better.

Microsoft did a good job in giving local content more visibility in the Windows Store.

Overall 10% of all applications in the rankings are locally popular only. This is even

higher when we disregard the small countries. In Japan, for example, 41% of all top

300 applications are locally popular only, and also in Korea, where about 30% of

all top applications are locally popular only. The Windows Store currently features

a total of 21,183 applications world wide, however only 13,844 (65%) are available

in North America. As a matter of comparison, this ratio is above 85% in most app

stores.

One month after the official launch there are already more than 20K applications

available in the Windows Store. This is more than the Apple Mac App Store, which

counts 13K applications, however, it still has a long way to go to reach the amount

of apps in the Apple App Store or Google Play, which both have over 600K available

applications. Still, there has been no store thus far that had that many available

applications after just one month in business.

There are some interesting differences between the PC stores (x86 and x64) and the

Surface (ARM) store. The PC stores share a lot of characteristics with the Apple Mac

App Store like price and the type of popular applications, while the surface store

shares more in common with the tablet and phone app stores.

NEW AND NOTEWORTHY
https://analytics.distimo.com/signuphttps://analytics.distimo.com/signup


3/9



The large number of applications that was available for the Windows ecosystem prior to

the launch of Windows 8 is not necessarily currently available for Windows 8. Thus, this

app store basically started from scratch, although developers that already developed

for Windows, will probably continue to do so. As of November 22, 2012, the number

of available applications in the Windows Store is 21,183. The applications are divided

depending on the computer processor architecture. Those that are currently supported

are; x64 (desktop), x86 (desktop) and ARM (surface). There are currently 21,129

applications available for x86, while Windows Store for x64 and ARM store each have

21,175 and 19,657 applications, respectively.

LARGEST LAUNCHING STORE TO DATE

In comparison to the other app stores, the Windows Store still has a long way to go, as

the Apple App Store and Google Play currently store over 600K applications. Throughout

this publication the Windows Store will be compared to the Apple Mac App Store (another

desktop app store) and the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, Microsofts other app store.

Please note that Microsoft also released the Windows Phone 8 Marketplace, which is

not discussed in this report. The Apple Mac App Store has been around for almost two

years now, but only stores 12,998 applications, i.e., within a couple of months between

the announcement and the official launch of Windows 8, Microsoft managed to already

outperform the Mac App Store in the number of available applications.

Looking at the distribution of free and paid applications, a

big difference between the Windows Store and the others can

be distinguished. Most of the app stores have a much biggerproportion of paid applications. Even in Google Play, which

is known for the proportion of free content; about 35% of all

applications are paid. In the Apple Mac App Store, 84% of all

content is paid.

HUGE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SURFACE AND DESKTOP STORE

Of those 14% of the applications that are paid in the Windows Store, about 55% priced

their app below $2.00, which is a trend that can be observed in basically all app stores.

When looking at the Surface store, this is even a little bit higher at 60%.


4/9



Although this 5% difference doesnt seem like a big difference, the difference in the

average prices in the three stores is high. The average price of all applications is $13.32

and $14.29 in Windows Store for the desktop, while the average price in the Surface

store is only $4.87.

The most popular category in the Windows Store is Games, which is not surprising

as Games is the most popular type of applications in every app store. However, as

we have seen in the Apple Mac App Store, the more serious applications tend to be

more popular in the desktop app stores. This can also be observed in the Windows

Store. When we look at the most popular categories in the Windows Store, there is

definitely a shift towards categories like Productivity and Tools, while only 25% of thefree applications ranked in the top overall are Games. The ratio of Games among the top

overall free applications is typically over 50% in most of the app stores.

SERIOUS CONTENT IS POPULAR IN THE WINDOWS STORE

This makes sense when looking at the different characteristics of the app store. The

Windows Store x84 and x64 are desktop app stores, and might therefore be best

compared to the Apple Mac App Store. The average application price in the Apple Mac

Store is $12.55, while the Surface store is a tablet store that might best be compared to

other tablet stores. When looking at the average application price in the Apple App Store

for iPad, $4.44, the average price among Surface applications is on par.

The average price among the top 100 applications is a whole different story. The average

price among the top 100 applications in Windows Store for desktop was $3.67, whilethe average price of top applications in Windows Store for Surface was $2.98.


5/9



Weve frequently discussed the topic of the availability of localized content in our

previous presentations and publications, and Microsoft seems to do a very good job

to promote local content. On average among the top 300 most popular apps in all 80countries more than 10% is locally popular only. However, there are large differences

per country, as several tiny countries have no local content at all, while in distinct

markets like Japan, 41% of the apps in the top 300 are only popular in Japan. The world

map below shows the proportion of local popular apps in the top 300 most popular

applications per country.

LOCALIZED CONTENT WIDELY AVAILABLE

Not only is Microsoft doing a good job in promoting local content, it also means that

Microsoft successfully persuaded local publishers to develop for a platform and an app

store that still has yet to prove itself. For example, from the worldwide total of 21,183

applications only 13,844 (65%) are also available in North America, while in contrast this

ratio is 98% in the Apple Mac App Store and 88% in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace.

We publish app leaderboards for all countries on a daily basis on the Distimo website,

so if you want to keep track or want to see what content is popular in a particular

country, please have a look at our leaderboards.

ALREADY THREE TIMES THE APPLE MAC APP STORE IN TERMS OF DOWNLOADS

Although the Windows Store has only been officially online for one month, the daily

download volumes among the top 300 most popular applications in the United States

are already higher than they are in the in the Apple Mac App Store.
http://www.distimo.com/leaderboards/windows-store-for-windows-8-x64/united-states/top-overall/freehttp://www.distimo.com/leaderboards/windows-store-for-windows-8-x64/united-states/top-overall/free


6/9



For paid downloads among the top 300 most popular paid applications, the Apple Mac

App Store is larger (5x), but with software like Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja and Microsoft

Office, it could very well be that the Windows Store soon will overtake the Apple Mac

App Store for paid downloads as well. In the Windows Store in the United States over

200K applications have already been downloaded on a daily basis in the top 300, while

this number is 80K in the Apple Mac App Store.

Some well known names have made the top publishers list during the first month of

the Windows Stores existence. Besides Microsofts apps (Skype, Microsoft Corporation,

Microsoft Studios), publishers like Rovio, Google and Wikimedia jumped on the Windows

Store bandwagon. The table on the next page shows the complete overview of the top

10 most popular desktop publishers including some of their characteristics.

EARLY SUCCESSFUL PUBLISHERS

Looking at the first findings about the Windows Store it is clear that there is a lot of

potential. This is not only because the number of potential customers will quickly grow

because of the reach of Windows, but also because Microsoft seems to have copied a

few best practices from its competitors and implemented them well. Splitting the tablet

and desktop store and focusing on local content are both promising strategies.

We will keep you updated about the progress of the Windows Store, and weve also

opened up our analytics tool for Windows Store. If you are developer and looking for

the best app store analytics out there, you should sign up for Distimo App Analytics. If

you are just interested in the content that is available in Windows Store, please look at

our daily updated leaderboards.

RECAP
http://www.distimo.com/app-analyticshttp://www.distimo.com/leaderboards/windows-store-for-windows-8-x64/united-states/top-overall/freehttp://www.distimo.com/leaderboards/windows-store-for-windows-8-x64/united-states/top-overall/freehttp://www.distimo.com/app-analytics


7/9



VISIT OUR WEBINAR ON THE

WINDOWS STOREON MONDAY THE 3RD OF DECEMBER

@ 05.00PM CET (08.00AM PST)

REGISTER HERE
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7672171483303048960https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7672171483303048960https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7672171483303048960https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7672171483303048960https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7672171483303048960https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7672171483303048960


8/9



Distimo AppIQ allows users to:

Track and compare app downloads and competitor app downloads: Analyze an

apps market share and compare download figures versus a competitors in one

chart. The chart shows the daily downloads and can also be aggregated per week or

month. Events such as price changes, featured listings and version updates are also

included, and allow the user to analyze the influence of each event on downloads.

Analyze competing app revenues including those from in-app purchases: View

daily revenues from competing apps side-by-side with the their own app and get

extensive insight into the revenue generation of different business models, revenueper country, and platform.

Identify the most popular and upcoming new apps: The Leaderboard provides the

daily rankings of all applications, and can be viewed by app store, country, category,

device, and free/paid/gross. All of the major app stores are supported, and for

iOS and Android, the daily volumes per individual app are also provided. AppIQ

users see the daily downloads and revenue from in-app purchases and one-off fees.

Developers can also use the Leaderboard to see how many downloads are needed to

achieve a certain ranking on any given day.

TRACK DAILY DOWNLOADS AND REVENUES OF ANY APP WITH DISTIMO APPIQ

Learn more about AppIQ at www.distimo.com/app-analytics/appiq.
http://www.distimo.com/app-analytics/appiqhttp://www.distimo.com/app-analytics/appiqhttp://www.distimo.com/app-analytics/appiq


9/9


Distimo 2012, some rights reserved.All trademarks are the property of their respective owners

DISTIMO CUSTOM REPORTS

CONTACT US

ABOUT DISTIMO

Aside from this free monthly publication, Distimo produces custom reports capable

of providing specific mobile application store analytics that are relevant to your

company. Custom reports are currently available for any country worldwide for the

Amazon Appstore, Apple App Store for iPhone, Apple App Store for iPad, Apple MacApp Store, BlackBerry App World, GetJar, Google Play, Nokia Ovi Store, Samsung Apps,

Windows Phone 7 Marketplace and Windows Store. Additional application stores will

be available in the coming months. To get a better idea of the type of data and metrics

that Distimo can provide, please visit our Report product page.

For sales inquiries, please contact Remco van den Elzen, VP Business Development at

[email protected] or call +31 30 82 00 567. For press inquiries please contactMindy M. Hull at [email protected] or call +31 62 504 7680 (EU) or

+1 415 889 9977 (USA).

Distimo has a very clear objective: to make the app market transparent. The company

was born out of the frustration of a lack of insights into the performance of apps and

the manual work needed to track important metrics. Our goal is to provide the best

and most actionable app intelligence for anyone who wants to compete in the app

market. Our data-driven team seeks to help developers, brands and financial services

companies gain actionable, timely and factual knowledge of whats happening daily in

the global app market. We offer three core services: App Analytics, to track all of your

important app data across all major app stores and ad networks; Conversion Tracking,

to measure your full app sales funnel from discovery and campaigns to app launch; and

Market Data, to analyze the daily download and revenue volumes of any app in the

market.

Founded in 2009, Distimo is a privately held company based in The Netherlands. Follow

us on Twitter, read our blog or learn more at http://www.distimo.com.

Disclaimer

This work is licensed under Creative Commons License Attribution Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0

Netherlands. This license is available for download at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/nl/.

This license ables you to use, copy, spread, and build upon this work non-commercially, as long as you credit

Distimo and license your new creations under the identical terms.
http://www.distimo.com/reporthttp://report.distimo.com/metrics/product-sheet-and-report-example/http://www.distimo.com/app-analyticshttp://www.distimo.com/app-analytics#conversion-trackinghttp://www.distimo.com/market-datahttps://twitter.com/distimohttp://www.distimo.com/blog/http://www.distimo.com/http://www.distimo.com/http://www.distimo.com/blog/https://twitter.com/distimohttp://www.distimo.com/market-datahttp://www.distimo.com/app-analytics#conversion-trackinghttp://www.distimo.com/app-analyticshttp://report.distimo.com/metrics/product-sheet-and-report-example/http://www.distimo.com/report

distimo publication - november 2012

Documents