As an iPhone developer or a publisher you are eager to know the sales stats for a certain applications on Apple AppStore.

We noticed that it’s possible to guess the sales of a particular app by looking at the number of reviews of application in the AppStore. Sure, this is very relative guess and can give the results which differ up to several times but still it’s good for a guess. Knowing if an app made 1.000, 10.000, 50.000, 100.000 or 500.000 sales can really help with understanding the preferences of iPhone users. Please note – we talk about paid Apps with no specific geo-targeting placed in USA AppStore since it’s the biggest one. Generally this is the case for 95% of Apps out there.

Let’s compare the sales numbers published online vs number of reviews those Applications have and come up with the ratio:

- Ocarina, reports $1MLM in revenue on Dec 13th, 2008 with price changing from $1.99 to $0.99. Rough guess: 700.000 units sold by now with 1255 reviews. Ratio: 550:1

- iFart Mobile. Is at 300.000 units right now based their twitter post and on the sales data they published when the app was in TOP1 of all categories. Has 769 reviews. Ratio: 400:1

- Trism reported 250k in sales with the price being $4.99 and ultimetly dropping to $2.99. Our guess the guy made 200.000 unit sales. There 545 reviews now. Ratio: 350:1

- Wooble sold about 10.000 units for one week and has 50 reviews. Ratio: 200:1

And the last piece of info: calculate sales of the apps which have at lest 30 reviews. Smaller number of reviews could get irrelevant sales figures for many reasons, e.g. the first reviews could be made by friends and family of the Application Developer.

We welcome you to post sales data vs number of reviews other applications in comments and will be updating this post accordingly.

Tags: iphone application development, iphone development, iphone sales data, iphone sales figures
Posted in iphone development, management | 13 Comments »

Everyone is excited about Iphone platform these days. With about 15 MLN devices sold so far it makes a huge new audience to target. A great deal of our customers and partners is coming up with the ideas for the Iphone Applications. I love talking to people about their ideas – being a business development person in nature it makes a good part of my day. All the Iphone-related requests can be divided into three categories according to my experience:

- Make another kick-ass application that will hit TOP10 AppStore. With stories like that popping up the internet every day there is a bunch of folks out there that think they have another great idea for the app. And I’m sure some of those will hit the jackpot!

- Port existing application or web service to the Iphone Platform. This is very wise move typically! Literally there is a wholly new audience waiting for the service which you provide on the web and not yet on Iphone. Be the first and gain competitive advantage over competitors. Now I heard the stories from CEO’s telling that they not only managed to increase the audience for the main service they provide but to earn some extra buck from the Iphone App sales.

- Update the web sites so they are displayed correctly on the Iphones. That is the simplest but smart move as well. With adoption of Iphones people started using Internet more heavily on mobile devices. So yes, it’s time to update your web site if you still didn’t do so.

Now the funniest thing about all Iphone-development buzz is that experienced app developers charge up to $150-250 per hour and some are booked up for the coming months. There are lots of talks about Interactive Agencies rejecting <$30k Iphone development projects because of the gap between the demand and available experienced developers on the market. MoveYourWeb is here to help as always! We have enough talent pool onsite and keep charging at a fraction of the rates mentioned above. Even after one of our apps was featured by Apple team.

Tags: iphone, iphone application development, iphones
Posted in iphone development, outsourcing, web development | No Comments »

The the post of October I was suggesting that Belarus is one of the best choices for outsourcing destination in those hard times. While it’s storming the exchange rates of many customers chances are high that local salaries of people will be eroded and the purchasing power will become less. Not the case for outsourcing industry in Belarus. Below is the extract from our post last year:

Worth case scenario for crisis is that devaluation of the belorussian ruble will occur which will be a hit for the country but not the outsourcing industry. In fact it will win in this case (consider employees being able to purchase more for the same salary).

On 2nd of January, 2009 Belarus’ central bank sharply devalued the belarusian ruble, allowing the currency to plunge 20 percent. It’s not my intention to cover the reasons and effects of this change on the economy and citizens. What’s I’m going to highlight instead is that the developers and other tech folks in Belarus started earning higher salaries overnight (of course the prices for commodities will be increased eventually). That is the case for all companies who are export oriented – the compensation of employees increased and so the satisfaction. Happy New Year to everyone!

Tags: belarus currency, currency, outsourcing
Posted in outsourcing | No Comments »

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