It is an open secret in the industry that many mobile app developers count on in-app purchases as a main source of revenue. Some developers advertise apps as “download for free” or “play for free,” but to actually progress in the game, players have to fork out a sizable amount of cash.
Apps like Game of War require players to spend hundreds of dollars at a time to purchase packs that allow them to truly make progress. The “free” game reportedly generated an average $550 per player in 2015 on in-app purchases.
It makes sense, then that the number crunchers of the world slice and dice figures to provide up-to-date statistics on mobile users’ in-app purchase habits. In a recent study conducted by AppsFlyer, 100 million users’ spending habits were analyzed with over $300 million spent on in-app purchases. AppsFlyer took geography, operating system, and app category into account.
In all categories, users that are willing to pay for apps average $9.60 a month per app, which is around 20 times more than the average user at $0.50 per app. Out of all the geographic areas included in the study, Asian users spent the most per app on a monthly basis, but no one outspent North American users overall.
Even though Latin American app users only spent half as much as other markets, they have a number of big spenders with plenty of cash to spend on their games. They are designated as “whales,” a term borrowed from the gambling and casino side of gaming, and spend much more on in-app purchases than any average user.
App developers that count on in-app purchases will undoubtedly use market data generated from studies like this one to target markets and app platforms that will drive the most revenue from users. Critics of in-app purchases and the associated marketing hope regardless of geography or device, developers use transparent and clear advertising to promote “pay to play” apps.
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