My Windows 8 app approaching 100,000 downloads
Many people are interested in some early Windows 8 stats. I live in Silicon Valley, and here it’s as simple as: “show me the money”. So, this is the time when I show you the money. To me this nice hockey-stick chart looks like there’s a gold rush going on with Windows 8, don’t believe me? I only show you the stats in this posts, just pure facts.
4 days before and after Windows 8 and Surface launch
This is the stats from my Card Games Chest app for Windows 8 a few days before and after Windows 8 launch. It’s clearly a hockey-stick pattern, the one that makes investors scream and jump on an opportunity to invest. This app enjoyed a decent 300-400 downloads per day before launch, but after Windows 8 and Microsoft Surface were launched I’m getting about 2000-3000 downloads per day, approaching 100,000 very quickly (up 15K to 65K in just a few days). I’m hoping for a million downloads by the end of this year, and I think this is reasonable.
After I added in-app purchases and Microsoft ads, it pays very well for my lunch and my dinner and a little extra. monthly rent AND a little extra.
I’m extremely happy about Windows 8, it’s a beautiful OS, very fast and fluid, well thought design and features you can’t find anywhere else.
Why consumers love Windows 8: from 13 to 55+ year olds!
I have very happy and very satisfied customers: in fact what impresses me the most, I actually have some early data to support that users from all age groups love it, based on the pattern of their purchases and downloads. I now have some very hard numbers that support the fact that users from all age groups love Windows 8! First, the download and purchase stats. As you can see, the app is downloaded by all age groups, including 13-21 and >55 years old. You see, only very satisfied customers buy the app, and they must love Windows 8 too, otherwise why would they buy it!
The interesting detail: more people older than 55 yo purchase advanced features in my app, which means not only are they comfortable with Windows 8 UI, but also, they are willing to spend money for in-app purchase! I read many posts recently from “I’m a Mac” prospective, arguing that Windows user interface is confusing. Clearly they were wrong all along: this chart below shows that people older than 55 are not only satisfied with Windows Store apps user experience, they are actually willing to pay money for premium features.
In-app purchases by age group
I know many iOS and Android developers, and I encourage them to join the Windows gold rush!
Monetizing Windows 8 apps
Windows 8 apps can be monetized in a number of ways: buy per download, trials, advertisements or in-app purchase or even third party e-commerce engines. Windows Store allows you to take home more revenue than Apple Store. Unlike Apple Store, which at the time of this writing takes 30% of revenue, Windows Store has a tiered revenue sharing model: first 25K in sales you pay 30%, anything on top of that Windows Store only takes 20%.
If your app makes $1mln in revenue, Windows Store allows you to take home almost $94,000 more than Apple Store! Just think about it: $94K remains in your pocket!
You can read more about Windows Store monetization options at the official Windows Store site. Also, check out my Professional Windows 8 Programming Book that has a chapter and samples on Windows Store.
This is the perfect time for it.
Comments
Anonymous
October 31, 2012
CongratsAnonymous
November 06, 2012
Wow! Congratulations! I am a beginner of Windows 8 App as well as C#/WPF/XAML/...... I am going to create my first card game. But I don't know use what technology is good enough to make animation for card turn over and dealing. WPF can implement animation, So do GDI+, DirectX, some 3rd engine like cocos2d... May I get help from you? Any advice? Thanks a lot~~Anonymous
November 10, 2012
Thanks for this post. It's time we heard some positive news on the apps front.Anonymous
November 10, 2012
Wow! Now I can really see Windows 8 is a very good place for developers to create apps.Anonymous
November 10, 2012
Did MS ever release their SDK? I mean really, the OS has shipped, so maybe now they will get around to releasing it?Anonymous
November 11, 2012
"The interesting detail: more people older than 55 yo buy my app, which means not only are they comfortable with Windows 8 UI, but also, they are willing to spend money to buy my app!" Clicking on the link to your app, you'll find that it is, in fact, free to download. You show a chart of in-app purchases by age group, but with no units. That is the antithesis of " I only show you the stats in this posts, just pure facts." I would guess that a post-Zynga/Words With Friends Silicon Valley realizes that there is little value in 2-day hockey stick growth for free appsAnonymous
November 11, 2012
@brant_chen you can pull it off just using CSS3 transitions and animations, there are many examples of the specific animations you are describing around the internet, unless you wish to design your own from scratch. The nice part about building on Windows 8's web stack is that you don't need a truck-load of vendor-specific tags, and you are getting hardware acceleration on animations, for free.Anonymous
November 11, 2012
Missing scale on the Y-axis of the last graphAnonymous
November 11, 2012
Chris Maddox: it actually gets better with hockey stick. App is free with in-app purchase, 55+ buy in-app purchase upgrade. Anyway, my point is: I'm making money on Windows 8, Apple market is too saturated.