One platform boasts of over 300,000 phone activations per day, while the other is still in its infancy. Of course we are talking about Android and Windows Phone 7. The latter only available on AT&T and T-Mobile, while every US carrier has shelves of Android devices. While one would think that Android’s version of Fruit Ninja would be slicing up the profits, it’s actually quite the opposite.
Update: TNWmicrosoft has updated their story and it seems they were the victim of fuzzy math. The original data had counted trial downloads as sales. The figures for Fruit Ninja are “flat out wrong”. We of course used this data as the source for our article. Obviously, two wrongs do not make a right in this case and our apologies for sharing incorrect information. If we are able to get some concrete numbers, we’ll share them.
Fruit Ninja, besides being an excellent game, is one of seven applications that has grossed over $100,000. Not bad for a new platform. What’s very telling is the comparison to Android. Fruit Ninja has grossed over $150,000 on the Windows Phone 7 platform. It has sold more units, at a higher price than Android. The developers brought in less than $20,000 from Android. That’s seven times more revenue generated from a much smaller user base, that will no doubt see growth once Sprint and Verizon release WP7 phones in the coming weeks and months.
Windows Phone 7 will enter it’s fourth month on the market and we are starting to see some salient traits of a burgeoning platform. The Marketplace will eclipse 10,000 apps this month, developers are making money and Sprint will release the HTC Arrive later this month. Microsoft is also expected to deliver upon their promise to release the first major update during the first two weeks of March. This should all point to more development, more apps and more reasons for consumers to choose a Windows Phone 7 device.
[TNW via @brian_henderson]
Wow, when Google said they were “not happy” with sales in Android Market they weren’t kidding! This is shocking! If Google does not retrain their customers that everything cannot be FREE like it is on the PC then how are they ever going to retain app developers on the platform?
Another wannabe psychologist. LOL
Face it: if Android outsells every other platform then somebody, somewhere is sure as hell making money. Seen HTC’s stock valuation, lately? Did you read about how Samsung sold a record number of phones, last year? Notice that all the talk about Motorola going bankrupt stopped, right after they switched to Android?
Same goes for app sales….somebody is making money, somewhere. And once Android outsells everybody else by 2X or 3X, there’s even more money to be made. All of your ‘concern’ and speculation are worth less than nothing. Go back to kissing Steve Jobs’ butt or chewing on Redmond’s rapidly dessicating teats, loser.
One would think Google couldn’t care if their market failed for paid apps.
Devs want to get paid, and if they can’t do it through the marketplace they’ll do it through ads. Serving ads is pretty much Googl’es core business these days. Makes sense to me that they’d prefer to make money serving ads through Android apps instead of taking a 30% cut of the up front cost.
Do a little research guys and you’ll find that developers are VERY UNHAPPY with the Android Market because they are not making enough money in it. Ad-supported apps are definitely the way to go with Android because Android users on average do not purchase apps like they do on iOS. But the problem with that is so far ad-revenue has been low and developers are disgruntled and many are leaving Android and going back to iOS where they make more money. One of the most successful games on Android is NOT making it’s money through ads, it’s making it via in-app purchases which they had to build themselves because Google does not support in-app purchases yet.
Google has publicly admitted that developer revenue is a problem and is investing millions to help change that. FACT…you cannot argue with that when it comes straight from the source! Hopefully Google can turn Android market around and make it more profitable for developers as we all want competition to be healthy between Apple and Google to keep them both making awesome products we all love!
These numbers are nice and all, but mean nothing when comparing different markets. While Fruit Ninja is a favorite amongst the WP7 games, it’s clearly nothing special in the Android world. If the app selection was comparable between markets, I imagine the results would be much closer.
The question is, why isn’t it special in the Android world? It’s popularity is not limited to WP7. Fruit Ninja does quite well on iOS.
Uh, did you bother to read their retraction?
‘Somebody’ – nah, couldn’t be TNW! – counted trial downloads as ‘sales’.
http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2011/02/17/about-those-wp7-app-sales-numbers-we-covered-yesterday/
You might think skepticism alone would have inspired them to seek independent verification (like, say, contacting the devs), but nah…this is New Journalism, after all. Just scan the unvetted ‘facts’, type a controversial headline and go grab some eyeballs. In fact, that’s exactly what you did, except you get to lay the blame on them. Heck, it’s a fair bet you won’t even print a retraction or will just bury it somewhere.
Welcome to the NJ club, EWM.
We have updated the story with the retraction as soon as it came to our attention.
Google is such a joke. I’m an android dev from Sri Lanka (near India) and devs from my country can’t sell apps on Android market. My iOS dev is seelling Aps on iTunes. Should seriously think of switching platform.
Then just switch. Or are you desperate for attention?
Iphone and Windows markets sell more than Android market because their phones are targeted to different people.
Think simply about Android being open source, many of their users are pro-free development, also Android comes with a huge variety of phones that make a considerable range between prices. Iphone users in some way show that they can buy expensive things whether they could have others that do the same for lower price, so it’s easy to think that they have more purchase power than an Android user.
Windows users may experiment something similar. But It must be a fact that Appstore sells much more than Windows; which some people have claimed that they gain 50 times more than in Android store, for the same app.
Amazes me how everybody is a psychology expert, here. LOL The simple fact is that these numbers are total pull-stats-out-of-your-butt bullpuckey, probably released specifically for FUD value by increasingly desperate Microsoft employees and fans of their pathetic mobile efforts.
Get over yourselves, people.
These numbers are wrong. The Next Web just posted an article apologizing for the ‘confusion’ http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2011/02/17/about-those-wp7-app-sales-numbers-we-covered-yesterday/
Thanks Dan! Post updated with correction.
Hi All,
I agree WP7 is good, but for developers there is no freedom to use device configuration, where as IOS and Android are providing good support for device configuration.