iOS's daily app revenues nearly eight times that of Android's, says analyst

Apple's iPhones and iPads generated $3.34 million and $2.07 million respectively in daily sales from App Store games and applications during January 2012, according to analyst group Distimo. Their $5.41 million total is almost eight times that of Google Play's (formerly Android Market) daily revenues for smartphone and tablet apps during the same month, $679,000. Distimo estimated these revenues by analyzing the 200 highest-grossing applications on each platform in its App VU Global report. Thought it represented only a fraction of iOS app revenues, sales for Google Play's highest-grossing titles grew by 31 percent in January 2012 compared to the previous month. Both platforms saw a surge in downloads and revenues for the first three months of the year. Distimo notes that in-app purchases accounted for most of the sales on both platforms, making up 60 percent of App Store and Google Play's revenues from top apps in January. That share increased in February to 73 percent or Android and iPad titles, and to 79 percent for iPhone apps. Apple has so far sold over 316 million iOS-based devices, and seen more than 25 billion games and applications downloaded from the App Store since its launch. Google has activated over 300 million Android devices, and seen more than 11 billion downloads from Google Play. "The strong growth in downloads and revenue for Apple and Android comes at a time when consumers typically rein back their spending after Christmas," says Paolo Pescatore, director of applications and content at CCS Insight, which collaborated with Distimo to publish App VU Global.