In a recent article, Flurry revealed that when it comes to mobile apps, many consumers will choose to free apps with ads rather than pay $0.99 for apps without ads. This insight was gained by analyzing nearly 350,000 apps over four, which uses Flurry Analytics.
According to the report, between 2010 and 2012, the percentage of apps using Flurry Analytics in the App Store that were free varied between 80% and 84%, but by 2013, 90% of apps in use were free.
“Some might argue that this supports the idea that “content wants to be free”, Mary Ellen Gordon reports for Flurry. “We don’t see it quite that way. Instead, we simply see this as the outcome of consumer choice: people want free content more than they want to avoid ads or to have the absolute highest quality content possible. This is a collective choice that could have played out differently and could still in particular contexts (e.g., enterprise apps or highly specialized apps such as those tracking medical or financial information).”
The data also the confirms the long held assumation that Android users tend to spend less on apps that iOS users.
“As of April 2013, the average price paid for Android apps (including those where the price was free) was significantly less than for iPhone and iPad apps as shown below.” Mary Gordon writes. “This suggests that Android owners want app content to be free even more than iOS device users, implying that Android users are more tolerant of in-app advertising to subsidize the cost of developing apps.”
Source: Flurry
