Android wins in app downloads, but iOS makes more money
New numbers show that Google Play exceeded Apple's App Store in app downloads by 10 percent in the second quarter; however, Apple earned 2.3 times the revenue.
Given that the majority of people worldwide use Android devices, it's no surprise that app downloads from Google Play far outpace those from Apple's App Store. However, Apple is still winning the game when it comes to profit.
A new report by the App Annie Index shows that during this year's second quarter, Google Play exceeded Apple's App Store in app downloads by 10 percent; but Apple generated 2.3 times the revenue of Google Play.
"Though Google Play led the iOS App Store in one key measure, there still remained a wide gap in app monetization," a blog post from the App Annie Index reads.
Apparently, it was games apps that earned Apple a boatload of money -- nearly 75 percent of all app revenue came from game downloads, which is up from 70 percent in the first quarter. Additionally, both music and social-networking apps helped drive revenue in Apple's App Store. As far as who's paying for these apps, nearly half of all of Apple's app revenue comes from users in the U.S. and Japan.
Looking at both Apple's App Store and Google Play, those countries downloading apps at the highest rate are the U.S., South Korea, and India for Google Play, and the U.S., China, and Japan for Apple's App Store. The countries growing at the fastest rate, as far as downloads, are Russia, India, and Brazil.
As far as what kinds of apps people are downloading, games continue to be No. 1 in both Google Play and Apple's App Store. Second place in Google Play is communications followed by tools. Whereas, in Apple's App Store, second and third place went to entertainment and photo & video.
Google announced last week that it expects more than 70 million Android tablet activations by the end of 2013, which is a huge jump from the end of 2012, when Google counted nearly 10 million tablet activations. With numbers like these, app downloads will only increase. The Web giant also said that it now has 1 million apps in Google Play with more than 50 billion downloaded.
Apple also has a lot of impressive numbers to tout. Earlier this month, its App Store surpassed 50 billion apps downloaded, with 900,000 programs available. Apple brags it's paid out $10 billion to developers, testament that it pays to work with a company even as it takes a 30 percent cut of sales.