According to a Flurry report, the platform is being killed by low developer revenues.
Flurry has released the results of its mobile marketing study, which has shown that Android is suffering from a serious monetization issue, as its developers are being paid only 24 cents for every dollar made by those for iOS.
Flurry’s vice president of marketing, Peter Farago, explained that there are three primary reasons that are causing the monetization gap at Android.
Android payments are not seamless, as Google Wallet has not spread rapidly enough.
The Google Wallet mobile payments system was expected to eliminate the issue but, according to Farago, “Google Wallet has limited penetration, there is commerce friction.” At iOS, the phone can be linked directly to the iTunes account so that a single click is all that is needed for purchasing and downloading an app. The Kindle Fire from Amazon has the same option through its Kindle Store.
Furthermore, a “curated store” has not been created. The distribution model at Android isn’t as efficient for apps, which means, in Farago’s words “There’s a lot of garbage on the shelf.” This makes mobile device users hesitant to pay for something that may not be of value to them.
Android users have become accustomed to receiving everything for free.
Consumers using Android-based devices are less interested in paying for apps, as there are typically free, ad-supported app alternatives available. They don’t feel that they should have to buy a product when they could receive it at no cost.
It is Farago’s belief that Google is facing a tremendous struggle if it wants to remedy this issue, as the solution is in direct opposition to the very nature of the company. It wants a frictionless and highly scalable system. As a result, it does not have any help lines, as an “anti-customer service company”. Amazon and Apple are both well entrenched in the retail and customer service sphere. This is a vital element to the overall user experience and is one that Android will somehow need to incorporate into its mobile marketing if it intends to continue its growth.
