An increasing’App-etite’ means more iOS downloads, higher prices for Apple’s App Store. Along the way, apps are being downloaded at triple the rate of song tracks, one analyst said Monday.
More than 32.3 million apps are being downloaded each day, nearly three times the 11.9 million song tracks downloaded from the iTunes music store, according to Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray.
The average iOS user will download 83 apps in 2011, up 61 percent from the previous year’s 51 app average, according to Munster. Additionally, the average app costs 14 percent more, a sharp reversal from an 18 percent price drop in 2011.
The trend “points to the increasing importance of an app store with a broad selection of tested apps to drive device sales,” Munster told investors. As smartphone owners an “increasing appetite to use apps to add features to their phones,” Apple’s iOS is the leading app ecosystem, he adds.
Munster’s analysis follows Apple announcing more than 15 billion apps have been downloaded by more than 200 million iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners.
Looking at the 15 billion downloads, 82 percent were for free iOS apps, while 18 percent were paid, Munster figures. Although the majority of apps are still free, the increasing amount that are paid indicates the end of what the analyst terms “the initial race to the bottom in App Store pricing.”
“We are seeing users pay up to add features and games to their iOS devices,” Munster said. Paid apps cost an average of $1.44, he said. The average price for a top 10 iPad app is $6.32, up 36 percent from 2010’s $4.66 average. An iPhone app ranked in the top 50 has a $1.61 average price, according to his estimates.
According to our own in-office, informal poll, this seems about right: we barely ever download tracks on iTunes, but we’re trying out a few new apps every week, at least. Then again, trying out apps is part of our jobs, where as buying new music is just something we occasionally do for fun. Do you find these results to tally with your shopping habits? Let us know.
