Independent mobile store Handango has issued an interesting metrics release. The content and app seller is reporting that both Blackberry and mobile games have been doing great business in the first half of 2009. Mobile games accounted for 25% of all apps sold in during H1, while for the first time Blackberry has become the dominant platform on the Handango buyers list.
Who is Handango?
Handango is an on-line store that sells mobile software. At the moment it aggregates content from a huge number of partners, adding over 500 this year alone. It sells apps through categories like Games, News and Media, Education and Messaging. It supports software for all the major OS platforms: Palm, WinMo, Symbian, Android, BlackBerry and even iPhone. Importantly, Handango doesn’t really DO free applications. If you want an app from it, you gotta pay. Handango only carries the premium stuff.
What are the key metrics?
Amongst a lot of lists of what the names of the best sellers are, there are two very interesting bits of information from Handango. First, Blackberry has risen to grab a 44% share of the total apps sold on the store. Second, mobile games have risen to represent 25% of all apps sold over the store.
Blackberry:
RIM devices had a 31% share last year, which has climbed an impressive 33% since then. This is the first time Blackberry devices have passed out WinMo. It’s worth noting that this is just volume of sales – the actual revenue from WinMo sales is still higher than Blackberry, as it has a higher average price per unit.
Games:
Mobile games accounted for just 6% of the content sold from Handango last year. To rocket to 25% in such a short space shows just how popular the idea of gaming on your device has become. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the biggest seller in this category was EA Games, which has been pushing it’s mobile division really hard since the start of the year.
Other highlights:
I tend to be a bit scathing when it comes to SPB, but it has consistently been the highest performing developer on Handango – not only in terms of downloads, but also in revenue generated. So it must doing something right.
From the release:
SPB Software chief Sebastian-Justus Schmidt: “Handango is the most important distribution partner for SPB Software. They do a great job supplying the best choice of software to end-users worldwide. Handango is by far the most well known site for Windows Mobile software and is always growing the market share and availability of apps for new Windows Mobile devices.”
What we think?
I like the idea of an app store dedicated totally to premium apps. Mixing free and paid content together will never work out well for the paid content! But having a centralised location for quality developments is a good thing. I find it interesting that even though iPhone apps are available over Handango, they’re not mentioned at all in this release. That might be a licensing thing – it might also be to do with the fact that anyone looking for an iPhone app is just going to download it from iTunes.
Check out the full report for more info
