A new report published Thursday by Flurry shows that 90% of all iOS apps in use today were free
downloads.
Twelve months ago, the percentage of iOS apps in use that came at no charge was 84%. Only 6% of installed iOS apps (using Flurry Analytics) came with a price tag of $0.99. That leaves just 4% of apps downloaded with a price of $1.99 of higher.
“Some might argue that this supports the idea that ‘content wants to be free.’ We don’t see it quite that way,” explains Flurry Director of Industry Insights and Analysis Mary Ellen Gordon.
“Instead, we simply see this as the outcome of consumer choice: People want free content more than they want to avoid ads or to have the absolute highest quality content possible,” Gordon writes in a post published Thursday. :This is a collective choice that could have played out differently and could still in particular contexts (e.g., enterprise apps or highly specialized apps such as those tracking medical or financial information).”
Free app popularity, however, isn’t limited to the iOS ecosystem. Flurry finds that Android users are even more inclined than their iOS counterparts to download free apps and related content.
To learn more about Flurry’s findings, click here.
