Apple confirms Japan is biggest Music market in regulatory fight
Apple doesn’t always win, company explains in commissioned reportrtoe
As the noose of poorly-framed regulation tightens around it, Apple has published a report it hopes will help it show how third-party apps are pretty successful on the App Store – and sometimes more successful than the ones it makes itself.
Making a case for itself
Everybody knows the company faces a whole host of regulatory pressure around the App Store, and it seems entirely possible it may be forced to change some of its business practises.
Apple doesn’t want to do this, so people will be looking to its latest report, commissioned by the company from economists at Analysis Group, for hints at areas in which a constructive compromise can be achieved.
The report notes the huge audience developers can reach when offering apps on its store. The analysis looks across all different app categories to show the kind of success apps made by developers who aren’t Apple enjoy on its store.
It also depicts how successful third-party apps are on the App Store – and that Apple’s own apps sometimes play second fiddle to alternatives there. Apple offers just 60 apps in total.
“Our quantitative analyses of engagement with apps (not merely app downloads) demonstrates that, across many app types, Apple’s own apps are eclipsed in popularity and account for a relatively small share of usage,” write Juliette Caminade, Ph.D., Markus von Wartburg, Ph.D., Analysis Group.
How Apple helps make it all possible
Announcing its report, the company tries to explain all it does to underpin the entire app development ecosystem, from the 250,000 software development building blocks (APIs) it provides to the 40+ SDKs developers can use to deploy machine learning, augmented reality, and other within their apps.
It argues that it works to give all developers a good deal, including providing profile at the store, and explains how it already puts a positive spotlight on solutions from competitors. That’s before you asses the investments it makes in tomorrow’s developers, such as Everyone Can Code, App Development in Swift, and Swift Playgrounds, which reached nearly 2 million students and educators in 2020 alone.
Analysis Group’s report relies on outcome-based engagement metrics to analyze the success of third-party apps on the App Store, and “finds that the most appropriate engagement measure depends on an app’s purpose and functionality,” Apple says.
The economist team also thought about how to measure success.
Success data isn’t always straightforward
They effectively observe that making comparisons between stairs and pears isn’t appropriate, arguing that it is important to compare apps within their own app categories.
That last argument is a little nuanced, but if you think about it makes perfect sense.
Success for the developer of an app focused on a highly niched task cannot be measured in the same way as the success of a mass market app can be seen. For some apps, downloads is a measure of success, while for others – particularly niche apps – the correct metrics will capture use and engagement. There are as many metrics, probably, as there are needs, usages, and business plans.
The report also offers a deep analysis on a wide variety of app types, from service-based apps that offer TV, movie, or music streaming, to core smartphone features like communication.
Quite a lot of additional data
Some highlights from the report include:
- Third-party apps are the only options for consumers for entire types of apps, including social networking, dating services, travel planning, and food and drink.
- Leaders in app types often vary across countries, with many regional leaders outperforming their globally competitive counterparts.
- Third-party apps are the most popular among iPhone users in most regions for major app types, including music streaming, TV, and movie streaming, reading, communication, and mapping apps.
- iPhone users often use multiple apps within a single category, especially apps for communicating, reading the news, watching videos, or navigating.
“Because users can choose among many different types of apps, and because many third- party apps are popular with users, Apple’s own apps account for a relatively small share of total app usage, despite the fact that most are preinstalled,” the researchers argue.
The report is actually packed with numerous statistics, so if you are a stats collector I’m sure you’ll find something you hadn’t seen before. Did you know that China was the biggest user of Apple Maps, Japan is Apple’s most successful Apple Music market or that more iPhone users use WhatsApp than Messages in the UK and Germany? That seems to be what the data says.
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