Our first annual developer survey launched April 4 and with the aim to capture, statistically, what we have been seeing in the industry firsthand – that too often app publishers are not planning and managing their mobile application as they would any other product or business. What we found we published in two formats: (1) an INFOGRAPHIC which went viral on May 2, 2012 and a white paper which was made publically available for free download on our website.
We were extremely pleased to see such an embrace by the media and bloggers in the technology and mobile industry to help us spread the word to the community on the importance of seeing your app as a business in order to succeed. Below is a summary of the the various tech blogs and sites that picked up the story. Thanks to all of these publications for their support.
- Mashable: Why Creating a Successful App Is Harder Than You Think [INFOGRAPHIC]
- Into Mobile: Survey: Most devs not making money from apps, spend $0 on marketing
- Read Write Web Mobile: Mobile Developers: Have a Business and Marketing Plan to Make Money
- AllTop – Holy Kaw: Wake up call: The truth behind success with mobile apps [infographic]
- TUAW: Dev survey: 59% of app devs not breaking even
- Venture Beat: iFlop: 60% of iOS developers lose money on apps (infographic)
- Business Insider SAI: App Developers Don’t Make Enough Money To Support a Business
- BGR: Infographic: Less than half of mobile apps don’t earn enough to break even
- Ars Technica: iOS app success is a “lottery”: 60% (or more) of developers don’t break even
- ZDNET: Build a financially viable app business? Writing the app is only step one
- PC Magazine: Infographic: 60 Percent of App Developers Don’t Break Even
- Mobile Syrup: How much does marketing play into app sales? Quite a lot, says survey
- TechVibes: 59% of Mobile Apps Don’t Generate Enough Revenue to Break Even [Infographic]
- iPhoneinCanada.com: iOS Developers Struggle to Generate Enough Revenue from App Store
- Pocketgamer: 6 out of 10 mobile developers don’t generate enough revenue to break even
- Velositor: [INFOGRAPHIC] 59% Mobile App Developers Not Breaking Even on their App
- The App Side: 59% of apps don’t break even claims survey
- IT Portal: App Developers Don’t Make Enough Money to Break Even
- iMore: 59% of iPhone and iPad app developers reportedly don’t break even on costs
- Pocket Next: 59% of apps don’t make enough to recoup development costs
- Developer.com: Survey: More Than Half of iOS Devs Not Breaking Even
We encourage you to continue to share these stories to help better the success with mobile apps.
Latest Tweets
Hi, thanks for the great information. It’s certainly consistent with other anecdotal data out there. My question was, did spending on marketing correlated with app success? That is, was it the case that the more you spent, the better your app did. Within limits, I would hope so; it’s discouraging to think that $30K in spending might yield only $50K in sales – that’s not much of a return.
Winthrop our survey did not go into this detail in this phase but we have seen firsthand that the answer is YES. Marketing is often a case of Cost Per Acquisition or CPA in that once you understand the cost of your user you can scale according to the spend.
In addition, the $30K to $50K relationship is not 1-1 but again this depends on the cost of your user which varies app to app.