Comments on: The Definitive Guide to iPhone App Market Sizing

By: Ex Back

Ex Back — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:45:56 +0000

hi friend, One thing to remember is that the user base for apps is growing by leaps and bounds. In their latest quarter

By: Jonathan Wegener

Jonathan Wegener — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:08:50 +0000

Delete.

By: chrisgen1

chrisgen1 — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:07:45 +0000

Great article. Check out http://www.GetAppQuotes.com if you have a mobile app idea. I posted my app project and got like 10 free quotes, apps was developed great and actually made a pretty nice profit from my idea.

By: StationStops for iPhone

StationStops for iPhone — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:51:06 +0000

Lol I was just authoring a very similar post about my MTA-related app when I found yours while looking for figures.

I have gotten pretty tired of people asking "do people make a lot of money selling iPhone apps?" when the answer to that question is restricted to the same per-product marketing variables of just about any other product.

I like writing my app and supporting passengers - I wrote the app for myself first. I far make less per hour on iPhone App sales than any other development job I have had in 15 years, but I'm ok with that.

However, it has held me back from jumping into similar products as StationStops with very limited potential market (Regular Metro-North commuters with iPhones), and a regular maintenance requirement.

By: StationStops for iPhone

StationStops for iPhone — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:51:06 +0000

By: usasonibifub

usasonibifub — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:12:26 +0000

usasonibifub... Chuckee Cheeses Card ...

By: Jonathan Wegener

Jonathan Wegener — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:47:05 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Aaron. First of all, the 3% figure is meant
as an upper bound, not as a reasonable sales figure estimate for an
unnoteworthy app or an app in a crowded category. It's intended for
people serve a market with a unique app which solves an unsolved
problem. Predicting game sales or copy cat app sales (ifart et al) is
a very different and more difficult task.

A quick note about Exit Strategy NYC - it's not a subway map app. It
doesn't compete with the other subway map apps, but instead has
functionality which compliments the other map apps and it's the only
app with this information.

As far as I can tell, reviews and numbers of downloads don't correlate
very well.

By: Jonathan Wegener

Jonathan Wegener — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:35:48 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Aaron. First of all, the 3% figure is meant as an upper bound, not as a reasonable sales figure estimate for an unnoteworthy app or an app in a crowded category. It's intended for people serve a market with a unique app which solves an unsolved problem. Predicting game sales or copy cat app sales (ifart et al) is a very different and more difficult task.

A quick note about Exit Strategy NYC - it's not a subway map app. It doesn't compete with the other subway map apps, but instead has functionality which compliments the other map apps and it's the only app with this information.

As far as I can tell, reviews and numbers of downloads don't correlate very well.

By: Aaron Watkins

Aaron Watkins — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:05:06 +0000

There are three kinds of lies right? Lies... damn lies... and statistics. I think that the 3% estimate may be way too optimistic here. Flight control is a game, and as such, does not have the same kind of competition that your application would have. While you may have four airplane games, the likelihood of someone having more then one subway application is slim. While your app has better features, you still have to compete with things like Gotham Wave's free NYC Subway maps, which has over 6000 reviews. (Id love to see someone post about reviews vs number of downloads).

I think there is also a major logic flaw in your addressable market... like you said, the MTA numbers do not represent uniques. You have to imagine at least half of the trips on a weekday are round trip - people who go to work, and then back home later in the day. You also cannot assume the Saterday people did not travel during the week as well. If there are 5.2MM rides on the week days, and half of them are round trips, then youve got about 3.9M riders. Ill give you 4MM for people who only ride the subway during the weekends and never during the week.

10% of your 4MM would be 400,000. 3% of that would be 12,000.

Going back to the first point - lets imagine anyone who already has a subway app and has rated it 3 stars or better is going to stick with the program they already have. Looking at your competition, there are 7,057 ratings of 3* or above for other peoples NYC subway applications.

Leaves your plateau point at about 5,000 downloads. Not saying you wont get more downloads then that, but at that point I would guess your daily sales would flatten out.

At $2.99, with Apple taking 30%, looks like revenue totaling about $9,000.

Of course... thats only iPhones. Good luck!

By: JTee

JTee — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 06:17:08 +0000

The Wall Street folks generally don't own thier Blackberries and do not have access to install apps…