Today I’m startin a new series of articles in this blog. It’s name is: Android Money Report.
As Android is open (at least way more open than other OSs), I decided to be open too. This is why I will share my monthly private income through Android Apps with you. The Income I’m getting with ANDLABS will not be part of this reports though, because I’m not allone in the company and hence not allowed to do so.
For all money reports, please click here.
Android and Money? How’s that gonna work!
Many Android developers heard that many times. Most people still say: “iOS, that’s where the money is (for apps)”. My experience shows that that’s definitely not true. The difference is that most of the Android apps gross more money when being ad supported instead of being sold. This month the proportion of my ad income to marked sales income was about 13:1. In one sentence: For most Android apps, using ads probably is the way to go!
Which Apps?
Here are the apps that are currently making me money:
- 3D Invaders – about 72.000 installs, 20% active
- AL Voice Recorder – about 320.000, 30% active
- AL Voice Recorder Ad Free – about 650 downloads, 45% active
- SmsToSpeech Full – about 600 downloads, 45% active
All my other apps are either not intended to bring in money or are a property of ANDLABS.
As AL Voice Recorder Ad Free and SmsToSpeech Full are not ad based, I don’t care too much about their active installs, in terms of income. But as you can see, my ad based apps, 3D Invaders and the AL Voice Recorder, don’t have too high active install rates, which is a problem for ad supported apps.
With 3D Invaders I think this is basically due to the fact that the game is very repetitive. It is fun first but becomes quiet boring after a while.
The voice recorder has a mysterious bug I was not (yet) able (and, I admit, willing enough) to reproduce which causes it not to work on some devices. I guess a lot of uninstalls have to do with this.
How?
Most of my apps generate money with ads. The voice recorder uses AdMob, 3D Invaders uses a mix of AdMob, Mobclix and Madvertise. While Admob brings stable income, I’m not satisfied with Mobclix. Madvertise used to bring enormous eCPM (more than $ 10) but decreased strongly in the last weeks.
Okay, how much did you get?
Here’s what you’ve been waiting for, my Android income for May 2011 (so far):
- Madvertise: ~$ 295
- Mobclix: ~ $ 50,94
- AdMob: $ 260,51
- Market sales: ~ $ 45
Total: ~ $ 651,47
(Numbers with a ~ are converted from Euro to USD)
This is an acceptable result. I must say that there have already been better times, but the future is bright as Android grows and so do my apps, I’m convinced.
What’s next?
3D Invaders will get a new set of weapons in the next days which will hopefully lead some more users to it and lets them keep the game longer and increase their playtime until they have tried out all the different weapons (especially the so called “Nuke”). I’m reworking the voice recorder but this might take a little while as I’m currently focussing on 3D Invaders and, of course, ANDLABS.
Hopefully my income will increase in the next month. My target figure is $ 750. I think this is definitely possible. We’ll see.
Please feel free to share your experiences with Android app revenue in the comments below.
Johannes is the co-founder of 
