One of the reasons that Android’s app market has been able to expand so rapidly, says Ovum, is its open nature. While Apple retains complete control over submissions to the App Store — and users can only download apps through that App Store — Android users are free to turn to GetJar and Amazon among others.
But while that openness leads to greater diversity, and apparently to more downloads, it doesn’t necessarily lead to more revenues. Ovum argues that the iPhone’s app revenues will reach $2.86 billion by 2016 compared with just $1.5 billion for Android — and that’s despite Android users almost doubling Apple’s 11.6 billion downloads by then.
Leaving aside the difficulty of predicting growth rates five years ahead in an industry that’s changing as rapidly as the mobile markets, Ovum’s revenue warnings are worth noting. A study by Carl Howe of analysts Yankee Group has criticized the large amounts of piracy of Android apps, as well as the low quality of titles that are sometimes little more than ringtones and wallpapers. According to Howe, the proliferation of different Android app outlets makes it possible for malicious developers to take an app from one site, add malware, then submit it to another store.
The report stated that almost a third of Android developers say that piracy has increased their support costs and another quarter say that it has added to their server costs. A remarkable 33 percent of Android app developers say that they have lost more than $10,000 in revenue to Android pirates.
iOS developers might complain about the fickleness of Apple’s approval process but at least they can be reasonably certain that the company will do what it can to cut back on piracy and protect their copyright. The question for Google — and for Android — is how to weigh up the benefits of the OS’s free market against the risks for developers and users.
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