Distimo: In-app purchases now half of iPhone developer revenues

Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) App Store doubled its inventory to almost 300,000 iPhone applications in 2010, while rival Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android Market grew six times during the past year to close in on 130,000 applications, according to app store analytics firm Distimo. Research In Motion's (NASDAQ:RIMM) BlackBerry App World and Nokia's (NYSE:NOK) Ovi Store also exhibited triple-digit growth, increasing to nearly 18,000 and 25,000 applications, respectively.

Distimo reports that the top 300 free applications in the U.S. generated an average of over 3 million downloads per day during December 2010, compared to only 350,000 premium app downloads each day. Between June and December, revenues generated by in-app purchases in free applications more than doubled for both the iPhone and iPad: In-app transactions across free and premium apps now account for 49 percent of iPhone developer revenues and 29 percent of iPad developer income.

Distimo adds that the average premium application price declined across all platforms in 2010. Paid app prices in the App Store dropped 12 percent, with the top 100 applications falling 19 percent; BlackBerry App World experienced a 24 price cut across both the entire store and the top 100 apps, while in the Ovi Store, the average price of the top 100 apps fell 61 percent, compared to 29 percent storewide. In Android Market, the average price of the top 100 apps fell 9 percent--however, from a storewide perspective, prices increased 1 percent.

For more:
- download the Distimo report

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