Google Play app revenue up, but still a distant second to Apple App Store

A new report from Distimo, a company that provides mobile app store analytics for developers, shows that revenue for the Android-based Google Play store is up. In November 2012, revenue from Google Play made up only 19 percent of combined total revenue between the Apple App Store and Google Play. However by this past April 2013 Google Play's share had increased by eight percentage points, now making up 27 percent of the combined total revenue of the two stores. Apple is still leading the market with 73 percent of the combined total revenue.

The report also delved into whether there is any truth to the conventional wisdom that app developers were finding it hard to monetize apps in the Google Play store. Google Play features a large number of successful free apps, but trails behind Apple in the number of successful paid apps. However, the growth of "freemium" gaming, where a free game is augmented with in-game purchases, combined with strong overseas sales for titles like Final Fantasy III is helping the store catch up.

There are a number of contributing factors to the increased growth of Google Play's store, but the largest are the growing European, Japanese and South Korean markets. According to Distimo these markets have been vital to Google Play's recent growth. While not mentioned in the Distimo analysis, this could be due to the lower cost of some Android hardware, making smartphones more affordable in countries with large populations of differing economic status levels.

While Google Play is starting to slowly catch up, the Apple App Store is still leading the market by a wide margin. As of April 2013, the United States was still the largest market when considering the total combined revenue of both stores. The daily revenue for the top 200 grossing apps in Google Play was US$1.1 million, while the top 200 apps in the Apple Store were bringing in $5.1 million a day. The Apple App Store revenues include both iPhone and iPad apps, which given the market share enjoyed by the iPad might explain some of Apple's lead over Google Play.

You can find Distimo's full analysis here.