Attending Nokia World? Managing Director Andreas Constantinou will be attending this event on September 5 & 6 in Helsinki. If you’d like to meet up with hm, get in touch.

[Championed by Google, WebRTC allows browsers to make calls from your PC or phone – and it’s disupting both telcos and incumbent VoIP players, from Skype to Viber. Guest author Tsahi Levent-Levi discusses Google’s intentions and the trouble ahead for both telcos and OTT players.] It’s been a tough couple of years for carriers (a.k.a. network operators) who have been fighting off competition from over-the-top (OTT) players such as Skype and WhatsApp, offering services such as voice and SMS over the carriers’ own networks. The impact of these OTT players has been astonishing – whether they’re nimble startups like Viber (with more than 90 million users, making over 1.5 billion calls a month and sending over 2 billion text messages), or large corporations such as Apple, whose iMessage  reaches 140 million users, sending 1 billion iMessages every day. But now an even bigger challenge has appeared on the scene: WebRTC. WebRTC is a technology that allows developers to build real-time communication into web pages. And it’s not just going to affect the carriers – it’s the OTT vendors who now face a real danger because WebRTC brings down the subscription walls of different OTT players. Right now, when it comes to OTT services, if I want to communicate with someone in real time, there’s no way to do so without installing a piece of software – plus, you can’t connect across services, e.g. call a Skype user from Viber. WebRTC is going to change everything How? It places the ability to use VoIP applications within any browser as it’s going to be part of the HTML5 standard. You won’t need a Skype ID, phone number, email address etc. – it will all take place through the browser, you won’t need to subscribe to any service, and you’ll have Google to thank for it. Google bought Global IP Solutions (GIPS), which provided and licensed voice and video media engines to anyone who wanted to develop a VoIP application (including Yahoo and Skype), reducing the effort considerably by offering the real-time multimedia parts of the application “out of the box”. Google didn’t stop at acquiring the technology – it is now using it to commoditize its competition in the communication space and drive browser sophistication even further. Here’s what Google did – Google created WebRTC by wrapping GIPS up with a set of Java Script APIs targeted at web browser developers, which means opening up VoIP technology to millions of developers. – Google open-sourced WebRTC, under a permissive BSD license – this made the technology available to reuse, modify and create derivatives; taking it out of the control of real-time media engineers and marginalized competitors like Spirit-DSP – It took the technology to W3C and IETF standards bodies for standardization to make sure it gets adopted and become an ubiquitous and common component in the browser, and in the process, removing any Google-centric connotations from the technology – It ignored the signalling layer, allowing vendors to use WebRTC in any real time communication settings, regardless of the protocol used for signalling call setup The strategy behind Google’s decision This is a classic “economics of complements” strategy that is commonly used by Google and it’s about to change the entire landscape of communication services for both carriers and OTT players. WebRTC is all about real-time communication from within the web browser, and it’s a crucial part of Google’s strategy because it reduces the barriers of developing rich communication applications by having legions of web developers exposed to WebRTC as a free technology. These web developers will take voice and video services into new domains with new use cases, expanding the richness of communication and making it easier than ever before to start your own VoIP service using WebRTC. For Google, this decision is simply about strengthening the Web and the web browser to reduce the gap between native application capabilities, whether they’re on the desktop or in the mobile realm. The real value for Google lies in allowing them to serve more ads and mine more insights out of people’s browser behavior – these are things that Google treasures. Such a move can weaken Microsoft along with its Skype acquisition and hurt Apple’s FaceTime service. The usual OTT business model OTT vendors base their strategy around reaching as many users as possible, offering them a compelling free service, locking them into it and then trying to monetize it via four main approaches: Advertising, done by ooVoo, Skype and others Connectivity to PSTN (Skype make most of their money out of connectivity to PSTN and the carrier’s phone numbering scheme) Value-added services, such as multipoint video calling; (done by ooVoo) Cashing out upon acquisition (which is what Viber is hoping to do) OTT vendors make their money out of mass usage of their system, and for that, they prefer having users work within the boundaries of their service, and not letting them interact with competing OTT offerings: (Just try calling from Viber to Skype. You can’t.) Goodbye, walls – hello to a new way of communicating WebRTC literally tears down the silo’ed walls of OTT vendors by removing the need for a physical client for each OTT vendor and for an OTT user ID (such as your skype ID or email address). Since there is no specific signaling, each vendor can decide whether (and how) to use user IDs. It will change the way we communicate, for example: – Think of a local insurance agent in Paris looking to lure new customers: he sets up a website, invests in AdWords to bring leads into his sales funnel, and then routes these leads to a contact page – or a phone number. With WebRTC, he can close the loop and have the person at home access his website and contact him directly from the web browser – to wherever the insurance agent is. No OTT vendor required. – Or a niche social network website for backpackers, trying to connect people planning a trip with one another. They won’t need to exchange user IDs or phone numbers, or install anything – with a click of a button they get connected through the social network website itself. There are already startup companies offering services using WebRTC. These include Bistri, Cloudeo, FrisB, TenHands and TokBox. As with the current web paradigm of signing in for new services using existing social media accounts, many of the new vendors who will adopt WebRTC technology will also opt for that model, removing the need for a unique service ID. And what about the carriers? Is WebRTC a threat or an opportunity? Well, it’s both – it just depends what the carriers do with it. It does mean that carriers face further disruption to their communication services but in parallel, there are also sizeable WebRTC opportunities. However, in order to seize them, carriers will need to embrace the web developer community and deliver value to WebRTC-based applications and services, curving itself a place in this vibrant ecosystem. Web developers are already looking for WebRTC solutions they can stitch and mesh into their applications. Carriers can actually become a vehicle for innovation vehicle by offering: – Session-based charging for WebRTC. As with any carrier service, they can charge customers for the WebRTC sessions they make: WebRTC communication passing through the carrier’s network can be tracked (through DPI and other means) and then charged for, probably against a bucket of minutes/sessions in the customer’s plan. – Merging RCS with WebRTC. RCS (also known as Joyn), is the carriers’ instant messaging solution. By adding WebRTC to RCS, it can offer out-of-the-box programmable multimedia capabilities with no need to look into additional protocols such as VoLTE. – Quality of service assurance. Need the police? Other emergency services? A business-related call? A carrier can assure the quality of service for that call and make sure it gets the proper priority over its network (at a cost, of course…). – Infrastructure. WebRTC is just a protocol – making a solution out of it requires a lot of additional components, most of which are server-side. A carrier can offer the server-side infrastructure as a service to customers. – PSTN connectivity. Carriers have their own existing voice communication network, along with connectivity to PSTN landline services. They can offer WebRTC termination to PSTN and GSM, bridging the gap between these voice services. – WebRTC signalling. WebRTC offers only the media component with no signaling and you still have to reach a person via WebRTC (which is where the carrier comes in – it provides the connectivity for the users). As much as they might want to, carriers are never going to be able to return to the golden revenue days before OTT players arrived on the scene, but WebRTC will allow them to stop the trend, (and maybe even reverse it a little bit), depending on how fast and how far they’re going to act. AT&T, T-Mobile, Deutsche Telekom and Orange are all examples of major carriers who have been quick to recognize and start to investigate the opportunities that WebRTC presents. The question is… how long will it take for others to follow? #mobileoperators #ott #webrtc

We’re proud to present our latest infographic, The Rise of the new App Economy – presenting some of the key findings and insights from our Developer Economics 2012 research report (which is available for free download here). Among other insights, the infographic presents the most popular mobile platforms for developers (and how they’ve gained or lost Mindshare in the past year). Android and iOS continue to be the most popular platforms, with a Mindshare Index of 76% and 66% respectively, while mobile web takes third place. You’ll also find the most popular screens that developers are currently targeting. Some 85% of developers today are targeting smartphones and 51% are targeting tablets – but, despite the hype, just around 8% of them target the TV screen. The infographic also presents some sad truths about developer monetization – and how 1 in 3 developers are living below the “app poverty line”, uncovers which are the most cost-heavy platforms to develop on on and takes a look at the supply vs. demand of apps at a regional level. Like our infographic? Feel free to embed it (embed urls below) #ios #developer #monetisation #mobileweb #Android #windowsphone #Blackberry #mobiledevelopment

[Apple and Google dominate the app store game – but only in terms of size. Senior Analyst Andreas Pappas discusses the key success factors for app stores, why Google is lagging behind and how Amazon fits in the whole picture] With Amazon challenging Google’s app market and Apple allegedly offering the best monetisation potential, several developers and analysts have put these claims to the test by comparing monetisation data across the three app markets. Differences in app store monetisation potential can have a significant impact on developer mindshare: developers will seek to leverage platforms that will make them more money. According to mobile app analytics firm Flurry, Apple apps lead the revenue table, while Amazon and Google apps generate 89% and 23% of Apple revenue, respectively. Flurry’s analysis only considered in-app purchases for the same app-basket for each platform. However, another report by game developers TinyCo, suggests that ARPU for one of their games is higher on Amazon than on Apple, while Google Play revenue is just 20% lower than Apple. Our analysis aims to explain the differences in monetisation and to identify key success factors in app markets. App stores are key to an ecosystem’s health Apple and Amazon have strong retail DNA and have been building a solid, direct business relationship with end-users for several years. Google has traditionally focused on B2B relationships with little exposure to retail. People associate Google with “free goodies” and not paid products as in the case of Apple and Amazon. Google has limited experience in creating an engaging shopping experience that would be on par with Apple’s and Amazon’s and this is evident across the entire shopping experience: from the storefront to product curation and check-out, Google is outperformed by its rivals. If Amazon and Apple app stores were high-street stores, then Google would be a flea market, although the upgrade to Google Play signals Google’s desire to move away from this model. It may be argued that app stores do not constitute a core revenue source for their owners so Google doesn’t need to be good at this since they still profit from ads. However, such a view is misleading and perilous: providing and increasing monetisation opportunities for developers is vital to an ecosystem’s success. Forget that and you can forget about your developers too. Carrier billing reduces payment friction Frictionless payment is a key element of any shopping experience, particularly so in mobile where establishing a billing account on the spot is a somewhat cumbersome process. Having access to most of their customer’s credit cards, Amazon and Apple have a direct billing relationship with their customers, a key element that Google presently lacks. This places Amazon and Apple in a better position when it comes to converting users to paying customers. If Google wants to increase conversion rates they must establish billing relationships with their customers and credit cards are not the only way. Carrier billing is an alternative method that can significantly reduce payment friction and create new opportunities in emerging markets, where credit cards are scarce. Google has already integrated carrier billing into Google Checkout in several markets such as Japan and S. Korea. In those countries developers offering freemium apps, such as Com2us, are seeing conversion rates of up to 10% while in the US where Google lacks carrier billing integration the conversion rate is only 3%. As smartphone share proliferates in emerging markets, carrier billing is bound to become increasingly important for app monetisation, creating opportunities for platform vendors, operators and developers. It pays off to treat all platforms as equals Developers’ attitudes towards the platforms they develop on have a significant impact on monetisation: the amount of time and effort that a developer spends on each platform will reflect on app quality and user experience. A developer focusing most of their effort on iOS may not be able to provide a similar level of quality for the same app ported to Android. As game developer TinyCo points out, when they were spending most of their time developing for iOS, iOS monetised better than Android. Their Android versions were simply not as good as the iOS versions, hindered, to some extent, by increased Android fragmentation. They managed to change this by building an optimised cross-platform game engine that allowed them to code once for both platforms. As a result they experienced increased conversion rates for both Amazon & Android, on par with Apple figures. In summary, it pays off to invest in each platform you develop on. If you cut corners, this will reflect on your profits. Target the right audience To some extent variations in monetisation depend on demographics: Apple’s high-end device mainly targets high-spenders rather than less affluent emerging markets, while S. Korean teenagers are mad about games. Also, different devices lend themselves to different user experience: a Kindle Fire is likely to attract more in-app content purchases than a Samsung Galaxy Mini. It is vital for developers to identify and target the right market and not expect their apps to monetise uniformly across platforms and market segments. However, before one blames demographics for their app’s poor monetisation on one or the other platform, they should ensure that they have provided a level playing field: is the user experience the same? are in-app purchases easy on both platforms? is one platform lacking some features? As demonstrated in the case of TinyCo discussed above, the target market for a particular app can have a uniform behaviour across platforms if the developer invests the time and effort to provide a consistent user experience. In Developer Economics 2012 we asked developers to assess monetisation of their main platforms and Blackberry came out on top in terms of average revenue per app-month, with 4% more revenue per app-month than iOS. Android revenues were 75% of iOS revenues, which is closer to the figures provided by TinyCo than to those provided by Flurry. However, Flurry’s figures only concern in-app purchases, a revenue model that is much less popular on Android (used by 20% of developers) than on iOS (used by 36% of developers), which could explain the large variance in terms in-app revenues for the two platforms. The discrepancy in the figures presented across different studies suggests that there are several ways to look at monetisation potential. For example, in the Developer Economics 2012 research, while Blackberry topped the table on average revenue per app-month, on average, a higher share of iOS developers earned over $500 per app-month than Blackberry developers, i.e. income distribution was fairer on iOS. (if you’re interested to see how other platforms fare in terms or revenue per app-month, check out our Developer Economics Visualisations – 19 interactive graphs showcasing key data from the research). It is clear, however, that Google Play is lagging behind Apple Store and Amazon in terms of monetisation and there is no evidence to the contrary. If Google and Android developers want to reduce the monetisation gap, they need to address the fundamental issues discussed above: improve the shopping experience, reduce payment friction, treat platforms as equals and target the right audience. #amazon #appstore #googleplay #Apple #mobileapp #Android

Join VisionMobile and BueVia in a Google Hangout (July 23, 8pm GMT) to discuss our recently published Developer Economics 2012 report. The hangout will include VisionMobile’s Andreas Constantinou, BlueVia and developers from around the world. Want to join? Hangout here. Update – You can view the video and slides from the Hangout here.

Join VisionMobile and Red Bend Software in a webinar (July 19, 2 p.m. UK time) about how Mobile Software Analytics will enable mobile operators, device manufacturers and enterprise administrators to uncover valuable trends and insight into application usage and software performance from the perspective of the mobile device itself. Want to join? Register here

[The game of ecosystems is in full bloom, with each player attempting to draw as many developers as possible around their platform. As we finally see some signs of consolidation, VisionMobile Senior Analyst Andreas Pappas, talks about the rules of engagement and identifies the winners and losers in this game of ecosystems in 2012. Also, we’re proud to introduce VisionMobile Visualisations – live, interactive graphs with tons of data from the Developer Economics 2012 research!] Below, we’d like to present a very small sample of our newly-launched Visualisations, depicting how Intentshare varies by the platform developers choose. The sample contains just one variable – for more filters and full functionality, visit visualisations.visionmobile.com INTENTSHARE INDEX Percentage of developers planning to adopt each platform, irrespective of which platform they’re primarily using now. The graph above is just a sample of what our new Visualisations can do – visit visualisations.visionmobile.com for full functionality. Just bear in mind that you need a minimum resolution of 1024 × 768 px to access. Developer Economics 2012 (free copy available here, thanks to the sponsorship by BlueVia) confirmed that reach remains the strongest motive for platform selection, as indicated by 54% of developers. With Android and iOS accounting for 82% of total smartphone sales in Q1 2012, according to IDC, these two platforms can now guarantee near ubiquitous smartphone reach for developers using them. As a result, developers’ mindshare is being increasingly dominated by these two platforms: Android is being used by three-quarters of developers and iOS is being used by 66% of developers. Mobile development market is consolidating but still in early stages This duopoly has resulted in development platform consolidation: in 2012 developers are using 2.7 platforms concurrently compared to 3.2 platforms last year. However, with less than 20% of mobile subscribers currently using smartphones, there are still opportunities for competitors to build up market share in the years to come: Ericsson estimates that the smartphone market will exceed 3 billion units in 2017 so the addressable market for all contenders is significantly larger than the current installed base which is slightly less than a billion. So while developers are adopting the platforms with the highest reach, they are also keeping an eye and hedging their bets on the long-tail of platforms, i.e. those with lower reach but which allow them to extend their footprint to a wider user base or that will allow them to reach niche and underserved markets now and in the future. This is evidenced by Developer Mindshare for mobile web, Windows Phone and BlackBerry and the high Developer Intetshare for Windows Phone. Windows Phone is the new cool: While Windows Phone sales continue to disappoint, a year on, with 2.6 million devices sold in Q1 2012, according to Gartner, interest among developers continues to build up. The Developer Economics 2012 survey indicated that irrespective of which platform they currently use most, the majority of developers who plan to adopt a new platform, plan to adopt Windows Phone (57%). Overall, 42% of developers using iOS and Android indicate that they plan to adopt Windows Phone and while the intention is slightly stronger among developers using mobile web (44%) or other, less popular platforms, intention doesn’t seem to vary significantly by the platform developers currently use. At the same time, seeing as last year’s 32% Intentshare for Windows Phone added only 1% to this year’s actual Mindshare, it becomes clear that converting intention to adoption is not a given. Windows Phone is indeed the new cool, a platform generating increasing developer buzz and anticipation; but to turn the buzz into developer buy-in at the levels of iOS and Android, actual adoption must follow soon or fall flat. To attract more developers into Windows Phone, Microsoft also needs to rethink its tool strategy. At present, developing on Windows Phone 7 requires a Windows PC, which presents a barrier to entry for iOS developers and the many web developers who are using a Mac. Support of WP7 development on a Mac is therefore crucial for reducing the onboarding friction for iOS and web developers. There are indications that Windows Phone sales are picking up in China and the US although the growth is nowhere near the rates that iOS and Android devices achieved in their first years since launch. Survival of the fittest: platforms disappearing into oblivion As with previous Developer Economics reports, we measured each platform’s defection rate, i.e., the percentage of developers who recently abandoned or plan to abandon each platform. BREW and Symbian fared the worst. They do not lack scale; on the contrary, BREW is still strong in the feature-phone segment, and Nokia shipped in four times more Symbian devices than Windows Phone devices in Q1 2012. Yet, both ecosystems lack the ingredients necessary to generate the kind of network effects enjoyed by iOS or Android. BREW, the first mobile platform with an app store (launched by Qualcomm in 2001) is approaching the end of its shelf life. After some initial success attracting carrier attention, BREW failed to compete against low-end Android designs targeting similar market segments. However, developer exodus is a much greater and more measurable testament to the terminal decline of BREW than any other market indicator: 60% of developers now using BREW indicate they plan to stop using it. We therefore believe that Qualcomm is quietly preparing to discontinue or sell the platform. Not surprisingly, following last year’s burning-platform drama by Nokia, Symbian showed the second-highest rate of developer attrition among the platforms in our survey. Developers see little reason to invest time or effort in the platform, given its effective end-of-shelf-life somewhere in 2013. Symbian developer abandonment rate has rapidly accelerated from 39% of developers last year to 52% in 2012. Clearly, developers heeded Nokia when it unambiguously declared it would bet its smartphone business on Microsoft. Despite substantial handset shipments – 11 million units in Q1 2012 – and the promise of a completely revamped BB 10 platform in the second half of 2012, BlackBerry is very close to becoming an endangered species. RIM has had significant difficulties competing with iOS and Android as its USP, based on messaging, is becoming increasingly irrelevant with email and instant-messaging now being commonplace features across all platforms. As a result, RIM experienced a 25% year- on-year decline in shipments in Q1 2012, with investors pressing the company to break up and sell its assets. BlackBerry is being abandoned by a relatively larger number of developers that use it as their main platform (14%), when compared to other major platforms and a large number of developers overall (41%). There are still developers that are loyal to BlackBerry and the platform continues to bring in more revenues on average than any other platform (4% more than iOS and 41% more than Android). Development costs are also significantly lower on BB OS: we calculated that the average development cost for a BlackBerry app is around $15,000 while Android and iOS apps cost around $22,000 and $27,000, on average, respectively. But unless RIM manages to reverse the downward trend in sales, these revenue and cost advantages will soon become meaningless. In yet another sign of industry consolidation, Samsung’s Bada platform is high on the list of platforms being abandoned. Some 49% of developers currently using Bada plan to drop it. Bada is Samsung’s application platform for low end smartphones, with 20 million units sold cumulatively since its launch in 2010. In Q1 2012, Bada shipments grew only 10% year-over-year, reaching 3.8 million devices. This lacklustre growth has developers flocking away to platforms seen as safer investments. Other challenges, for Bada, include its immaturity and substantial bug count, low-end smartphone hardware, and a lack of consumer pull leading to missing “hero apps,” like Angry Birds. The resulting mindshare churn should ring alarm bells at the Korean HQ, since Samsung needs Bada as a negotiating card against Google’s Android. With a weakening developer ecosystem, Bada looks to be niching itself to mostly Korean developers, and Samsung risks losing bargaining power as a result. Mobile development has become commoditised Contrary to popular perception that has developers of different platforms on opposite camps, in practice developers will overcome any barriers (e.g. learning curves, monetisation) and adopt any platform that gives them reach. Amidst the debate over the relative merits and drawbacks of iOS and Android, interestingly, most developers use both at the same time: 72% of developers that use iOS, also use Android, while 64% of developers using Android also use iOS.  With switching costs and learning curves on mobile development being lower than ever, developer mobility across platforms is higher than ever and improvements in cross-platform development will increase mobility even further. In such an environment, platforms that provide reach (Android, iOS) will retain and attract developers as long as they continue to provide reach. However, platforms with lower reach (e.g. Windows Phone) will only attract developers if they extend their reach and at the same time provide additional incentives to compensate developers for the platform’s reach-deficit. In order to do so they need to identify the developers they need to get on-board and find the right incentives to attract them. This becomes an almost impossible task without using a proper segmentation model. However, traditional segmentation models, based on the developer career stage (student vs pro), demographics (income or age), technologies (programming language or platform) or app category (games vs enterprise developers) rarely yield actionable results. An alternative is to take a “job-based” segmentation approach. As Professor Christensen defines it: “A job is the fundamental problem a customer needs to resolve in a given situation.” In Developer Economics 2012, we used both empirical knowledge and quantitative data from our survey of 1,500+ developers to arrive at a definitive job-based developer segmentation. Our segmentation model consists of eight developer segments, divided according to developer motivations, the platform they primarily use and their decision criteria for adopting a platform, tool or API. These are: the Hobbyists, the Explorers, the Hunters, the Guns for Hire, the Product Extenders, the Digital Media Publishers, the Gold Seekers and the Corporate IT developers. We believe that this segmentation model is instrumental for both developers (to understand their own competitive ecosystem) and for companies producing platforms, tools or APIs (to understand who the right developer is and how and where to approach them). #mobileapps #ios #mobileweb #mobiledeveloper #Android #windowsphone #Blackberry

[Why are publishers abandoning apps and betting on the Web? VisionMobile Senior Analyst Andreas Pappas looks into the flight of magazine publishers from native iOS apps to web-based platforms] The Story When the iPad first appeared on the market, publishers immediately saw its potential as a media-consumption device. Indeed they were right: iPad (and tablet) users are more likely to buy content than smartphone users. What they were not right about though was that native apps were the right vehicle to break into this market. A number of high-profile publishers have been recently abandoning native apps in favour of the mobile web. Among these are the Financial Times which moved to mobile web last year and MIT Technology Review magazine which is migrating this year. These moves come after investing significant time & money in developing native apps, and seeing their high-expectations failing to materialise. Native apps are not for everyone Publishers flocked to the iPad thinking that developing and maintaining a native app would be quick, and cost-effective. The reality has been far from this: content providers can rarely support in-house app-development, resorting to expensive outsourced development. They often struggle to support the number of different formats for their content: a version for the web, for the iPad, landscape for the iPad, for Android, and one for small screens. Mobile web offers a lower-cost alternative that can better leverage in-house resources and minimise device & screen fragmentation effects, allowing publishers to reach much further at a lower cost. However, native solutions do exist: native platforms such as Mag+ are purpose built publishing services that lack in flexibility but have a significant cost advantage compared to proprietary native apps. Apple’s gatekeeping function is not always welcome Apple’s role as the gatekeeper in the tablet market affords it considerable bargaining power against publishers. Apple has been leveraging this power to retain control of user data and the billing relationship, maintaining the 30% revenue cut on content purchased on their platform. The move to Newsstand, Apple’s separate distribution channel for publishers, brought some concessions on Apple’s part: they allowed consumers to opt-in for sharing their data with publishers, allowed subscription-based purchases and avoided double-charging for content already purchased through the publisher on independent platforms (e.g web). Nonetheless, the 30% revenue cut still hurts publishers as their profit margins are often much thinner than this rate. As a result some publishers have to either sell Newsstand content at a loss or charge more than they do on other platforms. If their business can absorb the loss, and benefit nonetheless, then it makes sense for them to continue offering their products through Apple’s store. However, as the cases of FT and MIT indicate, this is not always the case and other solutions should be sought. The way users consume content has changed Aggregator services such as Flipboard and Longform are changing the way users consume content. In such an environment publishers struggle to engage users in the way that print publications did, i.e. in reading an issue cover-to-cover. In addition, publishers often cannibalise their content by offering it on a number of platforms, most commonly on the web, and quite often for free, or at least cheaper as in the case of Wired magazine. This dilutes the value proposition for consumers: why pay for the native iPad app when I can get it on the web, which I can also access on the iPad, in some cases at lower or no cost. While native apps can probably provide a better, customised and personalised user experience than web apps, the difference rarely justifies the added cost, but most importantly does not justify the price premium. – Andreas Pappas Looking for more insights? Check out our Mobile Insider series; each issue delves into a single trend and strips it down to its essential components, giving a full report in an easy-to-digest, 5-page format. #mobileapps #publishers #web

We’re proud to present our new Developer Economics 2012 report – the third in the series of reports that set the standard for developer research. DevEcon12 focuses on five main areas: The redefinition of mobile ecosystems, Developer segmentation, Revenues vs. costs in the mobile economy, App marketing and distribution and Regional supply vs. demand of apps. Full report available for free download at www.DeveloperEconomics.com, thanks to the sponsorship by BlueVia.

[The latest Developer Economics report is now live – this is the third in the report series that set the standard for developer research and focuses on five main areas: The redefinition of mobile ecosystems, Developer segmentation, Revenues vs. costs in the mobile economy, App marketing and distribution and Regional supply vs. demand of apps. Developer Economics 2012 is available for free download at www.DeveloperEconomics.com, thanks to the sponsorship by BlueVia!] Here’s just a sample of the key insights and graphs from the report – download the full report for more! – The new pyramid of handset maker competition. In the new pyramid of handset maker competition, Apple leads innovators, Samsung leads fast-followers, ZTE leads assemblers and Nokia leads the feature phone market. Apple has seized almost three quarters of industry profits by delivering unique product experiences and tightly integrating hardware, software, services and design. Samsung ranks second to Apple in total industry profits. As a fast follower, its recipe for success is to reach market first with each new Android release. It produces its own chipsets and screens – the two most expensive components in the hardware stack – ensuring both profits and first-to-market component availability. – Tablets are now a mainstream screen for developers. Developers are rapidly responding to the rising popularity of tablets: our Developer Economics 2012 survey found that, irrespective of platform, more than 50% of developers are now targeting tablets, with iOS developers most likely (74%) to do so. This is a massive increase over last year, when just a third of developers (34.5%) reported targeting tablets. On the other end of the spectrum are TVs and game consoles, with fewer than 10% of developers targeting those screens. – Survival of the fittest has played out within 12 months. Whereas 2011 was the era of developer experimentation, 2012 is shaping up as the era of ecosystem consolidation around iOS and Android. Developer Mindshare is at an all-time-high 76% for Android and 66% for iOS. Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” model explains how BlackBerry, BREW, and Bada (Samsung) have lost Mindshare by failing to compete in terms of user reach, which is by far and consistently the top platform selection criterion for developers. In 2012, developers used on average 2.7 platforms in parallel, vs 3.2 in 2011, a clear sign of consolidation. The trend is further evidenced by declining IntentShare scores for most platforms – apart from mobile web and Windows Phone. – Windows Phone is the new cool. While Windows Phone sales continue to disappoint, a year on, with 2.6 million devices sold in Q1 2012, interest among developers continues to build up. Our survey of 1,500 developers indicated that, irrespective of which platform they currently use most, the majority of developers (57%) plan to adopt Windows Phone. At the same time, seeing as last year’s 32% Intentshare for Windows Phone added only 1% to this year’s actual Mindshare, it becomes clear that converting intention to adoption is not a given. Windows Phone is indeed the new cool, a platform generating increasing developer buzz and anticipation; but to turn the buzz into developer buy-in at the levels of iOS and Android, actual adoption must follow soon or fall flat. – Mass-exodus from the second runners. BREW (Qualcomm), is in terminal decline; the rate at which developers are abandoning BREW is alarming, with 60% of developers now using BREW indicate they plan to stop using it. Bada (Samsung) is being abandoned by 49% of developers currently using the platform, paling against the duopoly in both shipments (20 million units cumulative) and platform maturity. BlackBerry (RIM) is close to becoming an endangered species, being abandoned by 41% of developers, – worse, it is being abandoned by 14% of those using it as their primary platform plan to jump ship. No acquirer of RIM is likely to invest in salvaging the BB platform. The developer exodus is a much greater and more measurable testament to the decline of BREW, Bada and BlackBerry than any other market indicator. – User reach is the root cause for platform selection. In our survey of 1,500+ developers, a large installed base of devices still ranks as the top criteria for platform selection, cited by 54% of developers, irrespective of primary platform, while 43% cite low cost. In contrast, only 30% of developers selected a platform based on its revenue potential, a factor that increased by just over 10 percentage points in the last year. Reaching users, eyeballs or wallets is the root cause for platform selection. Once an application has reach, then ad impressions, paid downloads, subscriptions, or distribution deals will follow. – Solving the “Babel tower” of developer marketing. Millions and millions of dollars are being spent to attract developers, not just by mobile firms, but also brick-and-mortar companies. Businesses vying for developer innovation ignore the fact that in a market of over one million mobile app publishers, there are many shapes and sizes of developers. We created a quantitative segmentation model that addresses how to persuade developers to adopt a tool, platform or API, based on their motivations to commit valuable resources to the platform. The eight developer segments in this model are the Hobbyists, the Explorers, the Hunters, the Guns for Hire, the Product Extenders, the Digital Media Publishers, the Gold Seekers and the Corporate IT developers. – One in three developers lives below the app poverty line. Based on our research of 1,500+ developers we found that while the average per-app revenue is in the range of $1,200-$3,900 depending on platform, an app has a 35% chance of generating $1 – $500. This means that one in three developers live below the “app poverty line”; That is, they cannot rely on apps as a sole source of income. On the revenue-generating side, 14% of developers will make somewhere between $500 and $1,000 per app, while 13% will generate between $1,001 and $5,000 per app per month. – BlackBerry comes out on top in terms of average revenue followed by iOS with nearly $3,900 per app per month. BlackBerry developers generate, on average, 4% more revenue per app-month than iOS developers, who in turn generate about 35% more than Android developers. iOS wins over Android due to superior demographics (Apple users are less price sensitive), superior content (higher ratio of paid apps to free apps), tablet domination (where per app prices are higher) and frictionless payment (400 million accounts on file with one-click payment). – iOS most expensive platform to develop on at $27,000 per app. Apple’s iOS is the most costly platform to target, on average costing just above $27,000 per app, 21% more expensive than Android and 81% more expensive than Blackberry. The average app will take approximately three man-months to develop. Naturally, app development costs depend on the country and app category – for example iOS is faster to develop communication and social networking apps than Android. – Marginalisation of telco distribution. Telco portals have seen a 47% decrease in use as a primary channel to just 3% of developers, normalized by platform. These are the same portals that used to dominate content distribution in the pre-Apple era of downloadable ringtones, wallpapers and Java applications. There is one exception: leveraging the absence of Google Play in China, China Mobile’s app store has enrolled 22% of its subscribers, and has served over 600 million downloads, according to IHS Screen Digest. – The next 10 million apps. North America tops app demand with 41% of developers indicating this is a top-3 download region, irrespective of their region of origin. Europe claims a 31% share, followed by Asia where 25% of developers see most of their apps being downloaded. App demand in each country grows with three factors: rising levels of smartphone penetration, growing user engagement, and total addressable market of smartphone subscribers in a country. While many Western markets drive app demand due to these factors, BRIC markets will be driving demand an order of magnitude larger as their smartphone penetration increases. The next 10 million apps are not going to come from the current leading markets, but from BRIC demand for localised apps. – The imbalance between spoken vs app languages. A local language deficit emerges when comparing the languages spoken globally, against the supply of app-languages produced by developers: 85% of developers publishing in English address just 8% (around 500 million) of the world population speaking English, while Chinese, spoken by 22% of the world population, only attracts 16% of developers. English dominates developers’ language share almost everywhere, putting local languages supply at a deficit, not only on a global, but on a regional basis as well. Developers in Europe publish in 2.45 languages, the highest multi-language use across all regions. In South America, Spanish is used by 84% of developers, while English is only used by 48%. – Mapping the global app trade routes. Latin America has the largest share of developers (44%) experiencing demand mainly from global markets, and is therefore the most export-oriented app economy. In contrast, Europe is the least export-oriented app economy, with just 26% of developers focusing on non-regional markets. Overall, we see a far higher share of developers experiencing demand from their own region than from global markets. Read the full, 75-page report for more insights – available for free download, thanks to the sponsorship by BlueVia! Let us know what you think of the report – you can also connect with us on Twitter @visionmobile – The VisionMobile team #ios #developer #Android #windowsphone #Blackberry #mobile #apps

Welcome to our new website! After many long months in the making, we’ve finally launched our new, completely redesigned website. There’s lots of cool stuff here, so feel free to explore and dig around! Drop us a line if you have any feedback – or if you find anything that’s broken…

Business Partner George Voulgaris gave a presentation titled “Building Business in Mobile” at MOBIP 2012 Pan European Partnership and Investment for Mobile Services event

Presenting our new infographic – the Clash of Ecosystems. Android, iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, bada and others are locked in a winner-takes-all battle – and everything revolves around an ecosystem. This infographic presents key figures for each of our competing platforms, smartphone penetration per region – but it also shows what happened to platforms that didn’t make it. Which platform has the largest sales base?  Which has the largest app store, with the most downloads? Check out the answers in the Clash of Ecosystems infographic – as well as the mural of dead (or dying) platforms, our Dead Platform Graveyard. This infographic is based on the VisionMobile report “Clash of Ecosystems”, available for free download at www.visionmobile.com/Ecosystems Feel free to copy the infographic and embed it in your website (embed codes below the infographic). #mobileapps #mobileplatform #ios #symbian #Android #windowsphone #Blackberry

This infographic presents major findings from our latest report – Beyond Siri: the next frontier in User Interfaces is a critical analysis of the virtual assistants market. Helped by Apple’s successful launch of its Siri technology in 2011, voice-activated mobile virtual assistants (VAs) have crossed the chasm into mass-market deployments. Apple’s product triggered a wave of both imitation and innovation in the last year, including tens of smartphone applications. This was only for starters. Developers, speech recognition and AI vendors, telcos and handset manufacturers are now all working on bringing the next-generation VA to life Beyond Siri breaks down the virtual assistant market and showcases key players, Android vs. iOS downloads and revenues, as well as the evolution of VA technology from the phone assistant to the lifestyle buddy. This is still a market of high volumes of downloads, but low revenues. While Google’s Voice Search leads in terms of downloads, claiming a huge 86% of the market, it’s actually Voice Actions by Pannous who’s snatching most of the revenues – $655 USD in 2011. Android gets the lion’s share in terms of downloads, since 94% of all Virtual Assistant apps are downloaded on Android devices. However, it’s iOS that makes developers money – despite the fact that iOS only has 6% of VA apps downloads, it accounts for 86% of revenues! Full report on Virtual Assistant market available at www.visionmobile.com/VA Feel free to copy the infographic and embed it in your website (embed codes below the infographic). #mobileapps #siri #virtualassistants