14 DAY TRIAL // The Windows Store continues its growth and, according to new information provided by Microsoft for the month of January 2014, all categories in the store are getting more downloads every day.
Games accounted for nearly 40 percent of all downloads, Microsoft said, followed by entertainment, tools, social, and music & videos apps.
And still, the software giant claims that the number of downloads isn’t necessarily the most important thing for the Windows Store. The ratio of downloads per app is also fairly critical, the company explained, with the social category this time leading the charts.
“Like our previous trends update, Social is the #1 category with nearly 2x average downloads per app than the second category. Photos, Games, and Productivity are the next categories with the highest opportunity. If your goal is to reach the maximum number of downloads possible, these categories present the highest potential,” Microsoft said in a new post.
As far as markets are concerned, the United States and Canada are still topping the charts, followed by Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. Countries in Western Europe, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe come next, according to Microsoft’s statistics.
The language figures clearly bring English on the first position, while Spanish is the runner-up. French, Mandarin, German, Russian, and Brazilian Portuguese are next in users’ preferences, the company added.
“Offering your app in English only, for example, covers ~40% of Windows Store customers. Adding Spanish, French, and Mandarin increases coverage to ~60%, and adding German, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, and Italian covers the large majority of Windows Store customers,” Microsoft noted.
Of course, the opportunity to monetize your app is enormous, so the company has also provided statistics to indicate that paid apps and in-app purchases are still fairly attractive for Windows 8.1 users.
“Paid apps and Microsoft advertising generated 70% of the 2013 revenue, and in-app purchase was the fastest growing revenue model, reaching to 30% of all store revenue in the year. In-app purchase is growing quickly, so much that in Jan 2014, in-app purchase surpassed paid apps revenue,” Microsoft added.
In-app purchases were introduced in Windows 8.1, and Microsoft explains that they significantly contributed to the overall growth of the Windows Store, as the number of users who bought add-ons for the apps they downloaded on Windows 8.1 grew up impressively in the last few months, with figures very likely to continue their increase in the coming months.