An interesting dynamic in the AppStore – for the first time since launch, ‘free’ is not the most popular application price. In addition, the percentage of applications that are free is falling. At launch, almost a quarter of applications were free. As of this morning, Pinch Media tracked 798 applications in the AppStore – 161 (20.2%) free, 637 (79.8%) paid. I’ve heard some theorize that Apple emphasized paid applications over free at launch, but this (admittedly-short) trend suggests that this isn’t the case – perhaps Apple wanted more free applications, but they simply weren’t forthcoming.
At the same time, competition among paid applications is leading to price cuts – Pinch Media has tracked 67 separate price drops since AppStore launch. Almost 69% of paid applications are now $4.99 or less and $0.99 is the most popular price point (with 188 applications, up from 85 just five days ago.) $9.99 remains the second-most popular price point for an application, but it’s a distant second with 96 applications.
A graph of current AppStore application price distribution is attached. Compare that to the graph at launch, less than a week ago.
greg
can you tell us the distribution of downloads by price point?
i think that’s a more interesting chart
fred
Fred -
Downloads aren’t publicly available – so we can only rely on the aggregated statistics of companies using Pinch Analytics to make general pronouncements on downloads.
You’re right that downloads by price point is a much more interesting chart, but we need to expand our userbase before I have data I’m comfortable releasing.
- Greg
Please, could someone who knows Mr Clay Shirky show this chart to him? He still preaches that “free” is the best price for anything on the Net, and thus, keeps large segments on the industry totally in the dark.