The State of Freemium on the iTunes App Store
21 Nov 2010Currently, 24 of the top 100 grossing applications on the Canadian iPad chart are *freemium *(supported by in-app purchases).
There is a fairly even distribution throughout the rankings, but it is interesting to note that the free application *Smurfs Village *is currently #1 and has been for the past 4 days.
Fluctuation is actually quite high amongst freemium iPad applications and most lack staying power. It would be interesting to hear from the vendors if actual revenues fluctuate as much as the charts seem to indicate.
It’s a different story with the iPhone. 29 of the top 100 grossing applications are freemium but nearly all of them have significant staying power.
For example, World War has steadily risen from #70 to #7 over the past 25 days, without any content updates. An application like Shazam is even more consistent, holding it’s top 20 spot for the past month.
Is the rise of freemium a new phenomenon?
Yes, it is.
Looking back three months to August and there were just 9 **iPad and 4** iPhone applications in the top 100. None are currently on the chart today, and less than 50% have shown any activity over the past 30 days.
*** **These are numbers from the Canadian Top 100 Grossing charts. Leave a comment if you’d like to see the numbers for the US/UK.