14 DAY TRIAL // Google Play store sales are growing rapidly, but the numbers aren’t nearly as high as Apple’s, despite the fact that the latter has slowed down considerably in the last quarter.
Research company Canalys ran a study, covering the top app stores in over 50 countries. Its studies revealed that Apple’s App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Store and BlackBerry World had increased sales over the last quarter, compared to the last three months of December.
[admark=1]The total number of downloads hit 13.4 billion, 11% over the previous data.
This translates into revenues of $2.2 billion (€1.7 billions), a staggering sum for a young industry.
Apple’s App Store sales accounted for three quarters of the total earnings in the first quarter of 2013, Reuters reports.
At the same time, Google Play sales generated only 18% of the $2.2, which means a little under $400 million (€ 306 million).
“Apple’s App Store and Google Play remain the heavyweights in the app store world. In comparison, BlackBerry World and the Windows Phone Store remain distant challengers today, though they still should not be ignored,” said Tim Shepherd, Canalys senior analyst.
According to Shepherd, the strength of the app ecosystem will increasingly help to determine winners and losers in this industry.
“Each of these four stores represents a different market proposition for developers, and remains the primary outlet to reach users on the platforms they serve. BlackBerry and Microsoft particularly need to continue to proactively work to attract fresh, innovative content and services to their respective catalogs, and fill gaps in their inventories,” Shepherd continued.
Google’s revenues for the first trimester of the year have reached $14.4 billion (€11 billion) and a net income of $3.9 billion (under €3 billion). The increase year over year is of 31%.
This means that the revenue from the Google Play store represents under 3 percent of the company’s overall financial results for the first three months of 2013. Most of the cash continues to come from advertising.