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Android Market ZOOM

By AndroidZoom
The evolution of Android Market in 2010 and challenges for 2011
Information extracted by AndroidZoom.com to keep you up-to-date

Available applications

During 2010, a total of 170,000 applications were published

on Google’s Android Market. 75% of them were still active and
available at the close of the year.

78% were updated by the developer in the last 6 months.

27% were updated in the last month.

Recent activity

Almost 65,000 new applications have been published on Market

since September 2010.
This figure means that Android Market has doubled the number of
available applications in a period of just 6 months.

Paid vs Free

Only a third of the applications available are paid.

Among the paid applications, the most common price is $1.

Over half the paid applications are offered at this price.

$1 is also the minimum price at which applications are sold.

Conclusion: Half the paid applications are sold at the
minimum price.

©AndroidZoom 2011 www.androidzoom.com

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Applications Evolution
Applications Evolution, 2010

180000
169092

160000
148764

140000
124862

120000 111116
103804
97555
100000
87247
82874 Total
80000 70697 70162 Free

56836 58683 57976 Paid

60000 51209
47465
43956 41988
37699
40000 29962
33642
29021 28564
23232
19685 19517 19137
20000 12728 14935
10393 10445
4681 6720 6957
3044
1637 3673

After the summer period there was a peak of

acceleration, with the highest growth taking
place in the second half of the year. Free
applications make up two thirds of the total. This
data has remained constant despite rapid monthly
growth throughout the year.

©AndroidZoom 2011 www.androidzoom.com

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The most downloaded applications of 2010

Google Maps Facebook for Android

by Google Inc. by Facebook

Pandora Radio Handcent SMS

by Pandora by handcent_admin

Source: http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/by_popularity

©AndroidZoom 2011 www.androidzoom.com

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Category analysis
Total number of applications by category

Evolution of the number of applications by category

Entertainment is the top category with 53% more applications than

the second category, Adults. It is also the category with the fastest
growth in the second half of the year.

©AndroidZoom 2011 www.androidzoom.com

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Key factors for 2011

1. The entertainment and adult categories will further establish themselves as the most
popular. Everything is pointing towards significant growth in the sale of Android-based tablets
during 2011. The multimedia capacity of tablets goes much further than that of smartphones
(bigger screens, faster processors, more multimedia features, etc.) This would suggest that more
applications will emerge to make full use of these characteristics (games, multimedia, etc.) and to
meet the demand that this new set of devices will generate

2. Free applications will continue to dominate: As indicated in the analysis section, free
applications took the lead in 2010. The free distribution of applications is a common technique for
gaining users. Within the free applications group there are two main types: those sponsored by
other services, whose sole aim is to generate activity (twitter, Facebook…) and those with an
indirect commercial objective (mainly advertising). It is in the latter type where we believe things
will improve. The new characteristics and models of mobile advertising allow room for optimism
and we can expect improved profitability for companies who want to maintain their
developments with advertising.

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/01/13/android-surpasses-iphon/

3. The rise of the Books and reference category. The use of tablets as digital books, together with
the inertia of more mature products such as Kindle, points to the creation of more applications in
this area, leading to a significant rise in the number of applications available in the “Books and
reference” category.

4. Google will be one of the main developers of its own platform. In contrast to Apple with iOS,
Google plays the main role as applications developer for the Android platform. Google Maps,
Google Translate or Google Googles are the applications most downloaded by users, a clear
demonstration of this prominence. Over the next year, we can expect this trend to continue, with
Google as the forerunner in creating applications for its own operating system.

©AndroidZoom 2011 www.androidzoom.com

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Challenges for 2011

 Development of more mature business solutions. The current data indicates that
Android devices are used mainly for leisure purposes. However, the inbuilt device
features and native integration of services such as Google Apps, Contacts or GMail
provide a window of opportunity for Android as a platform that could also attract a
business audience that currently uses RIM or Microsoft solutions.

 An end to version and device fragmentation. As free software, a wide variety of

manufacturers use Android. While this works very much in favor of platform growth, it
creates a whole series of difficulties when it comes to distributing new operating system
updates. This presents a major problem for users because they never know when updates
will reach their device, or if they ever will. It is an issue that generates uncertainty,
complicates the process of purchasing new devices, leads to frustration as it means that
not all applications can be installed from Market and inevitably, devices become obsolete
faster…

One of the main reasons that updates get delayed (or don’t even happen) is due to the
need to migrate and integrate each manufacturer’s proprietary system (like HTC Sense). A
major improvement in this area would be the ability to separate the presentation layer
from the system’s core, allowing updates to be received instantly.

 Longer trial period for applications. The 15-minute trial period for applications installed
from Android Market is clearly insufficient. One solution would be to differentiate
between application categories; after all, trying out a game is not the same as testing an
application for professional use, so the time given for each should be different.

©AndroidZoom 2011 www.androidzoom.com

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