Apple users love downloading free apps that include the option to buy a premium version. The rise of so-called “fremium” apps now accounts for nearly three of every four App Store downloads, finds new research. Downloads that include in-app purchases grew 34 percent since 2010 compared to just 7 percent for paid apps.
For Apple, the revenue split is 48 percent for free apps with in-app purchases with 24 percent for paid apps with in-app purchases. The remaining 28 percent of app sales came from paid-only apps, according to Distimo.
It came as little surprise freemium games comprise 65 percent of the top-grossing titles in the U.S. App Store. Other popular categories for in-app downloads include publishing and comics.
Of course, Apple doesn’t have the corner of freemium apps. In a similar trend, Android apps with in-app purchases are 68 percent of that market’s 25 top grossing titles.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
