Revenues Generated From Freemium Apps Predicted To Rise In Future

By Author: Yancy Marry
Total Articles: 185

Freemium is the new concept to have caught on in the mobile application world. A business model, that was designed to provide products & services for free to users, apart from the fee charged on advanced features, is being widely used across worldwide app development firms. According to a recently concluded survey, freemium mobile apps generated at least 75 percent of Android app revenue and 69 percent of iOS app revenue this year.

It was only last year that the mobile application development industry adopted the concept of freemium when such apps designed for the iOS platform generated 50 percent of the total annual revenue for Apple. In a span of a year, freemium apps have become popular not only in the US but also in Asian countries like China & Japan. These apps which are free but have an in-app purchase, have been showing a steady growth in the generation of revenues over the past one year; the latest figures indicate that they have outpaced the sale of premium apps in both Google Play & iOS stores. While the revenue generated from the sale of freemium apps has increased 3.5 times in one year, it has quadrupled in the Apple App Store over the past two years. On the other hand, the revenue generated from premium apps in the same span of time has remained stagnant.

A study has revealed that while users do not like to pay for every mobile app downloaded by them, they also look for high quality mobile applications; both low price & good quality are features found in freemium apps. While the freemium model of mobile applications is increasingly being used by consumers, it is gradually becoming the most profitable model for mobile app developers. The concept which was first introduced in the video game industry, when developers released one basic version of a game for free, charging fees only when there was additional in-game content, has generated immense publicity & hence revenue in the last one year. Most users & developers were attracted towards the freemium model of mobile application when they realized that the profits generated from the concept increased in leaps & bounds. Today, micro transaction or freemium is not only the most popular method of app selling, but also looks like the most accepted form of app sales of the future. Gone are the days when a free app was considered counter intuitive. What started out as an experiment limited to only one section (gaming) of application development, has grown dramatically to be accepted in other areas of mobile app development too. The freemium or alternative monetization strategy ensures that app developers make profits while users have to spend less.

A mobile app is declared successful in the mobile market only if it is downloaded across all the major OS platforms, people talk about it, and it tops the charts of application ranking. In a highly competitive market, it is difficult to achieve all the three if the app developer does not adopt a well planned strategy. There is no better way to ensure that your mobile app will make it big in the mobile market and will also attract an ever expanding user base than to provide it for free. Indeed, research has shown that freemium apps have made it to the top of the app rating system, and the concept is no longer limited to the gaming sector.

Copper Mobile, is a enterprise application development company in India. The mobile applications development firm has team of experienced Android, BlackBerry and iPad developers who have created over 300 mobile applications for clients across the globe.