Leading app analytics firm AppFigures published a study this summer that examined developer preferences within the top three mobile platforms. Their findings were surprising.
With more than 500,000 app developers in the mobile ecosystem, only a small percentage make apps to more than one platform. While Apple’s iOS has long proven to be the best revenue generating platform for developers, one might expect that many would write for more than one platform to reach a wider audience.
Apple’s App Store kickstarted the mobile app economy in 2008, with Google Play and the Amazon Appstore emerging soon after. Google Play has the largest number of developers at 293,000, with iOS coming in at 272,000, and 31,000 developing for Amazon.
Surprisingly, only 12 percent of this developer population sells apps on more than one store, while only 1 percent sell apps on all three. With a total of 506,742 developers, only 11 percent, or fewer than 58,000 developers, create apps for both the App Store and Google Play.
So what can developers do to maximize their access to markets?
Research2guidance surveyed over two thousand app makers around the world to find which cross-platform tools (CPTs) helped meet this challenge. Respondents gave ratings in ten categories for over 150 CPTs now available. The report focused on the top 40 leading tools in what is the largest global evaluation of the cross-platform tool marketplace.
While awareness of CPTs is on the rise, many of these resources remain unknown. And with a wide variety available to app makers, it can be difficult to identify the best resources for a specific project. Research2guidance’s benchmarking identified tools by cost, platform, programming languages, and other features. Respondents rated vendors, time savings, and subsequent app performance.
The study had some very interested findings.
- Demand for Windows Phone is high. Windows Phone is the platform which tops the wish list of CPT users. 36% state that they wish their CP tool supported WP8.
- Users satisfaction is high. 93% of all CPT users would recommend their tools to other app developers.
- CPTs deliver increased efficiency. 30% of respondents said their CPTs cut work time in half or more.
Multiple platform access is a way for app companies to find more revenue. research2guidance’s report is a good source for what works best.
The full research2guidance report is available here.