An analysis of the 30 App Store top grossing games and IAPs in iTunes

app store top grossing

Keeping in touch with market trends and seeing what your future customers like, what they are buying right now, and what they want is really important for anyone who wants to publish apps successfully in the app store. Two weeks ago I decided to dig deep into the store, specifically the games area to see what trends I could uncover. Lets look at the app store top grossing games & IAPs.

games

I looked first at the top 30 apps in the overall top grossing charts. This chart contains all of the apps which are making the most money earned from Apple. 93% of top grossing apps are games. So I dived in a bit deeper to this category……..

Of the top 30 highest grossing games in iTunes:

– 73% of the top grossing games are free
– 4 games are $.99, 2 games are $2.99, 1 game is $4.99 and 1 game is $6.99
– 47% of games are targeted at both genders
– 33% of games are targeted at boys

The most popular games categories in the top 30 overall grossing games list were:

-Strategy (5 games)
-Adventure (4 games)
-Simulation (3 games)
-Racing (3 games)
-Casino (3 games)
-Arcade (2 games)
-Role Playing (2 games)
-Card games (2 games)
-Action (1 game)
-Family (1 game)
-Sports (1 game)
-Word (1 game)

app store top grossing

-Over 66% of the 30 top grossing games use multiplayer.
-53% of the 30 top grossing apps use gamecenter.
-86% of the 30 top grossing games are universal (available for iPhone and iPad).

app store top grossing

-The “free plus in-app purchases” is the most common monitization model found in the 30 top grossing games in the market today.


-93% of the 30 top grossing games use in app purchases.
-53% of the 30 top grossing games have 10 or more in app purchases.
-40% of the 30 top grossing games have between 4 and 7 used in app purchases.
-In the 30 top grossing games, the minimum price point is $.99. The max price is $99.99.
-50% of the 30 top grossing games have their lowest in app purchase $1.99 or greater.
-The most common price points are: $.99, $1.99, $2.99, $4.99, $9.99, $14.99, $19.99, $49.99 and $99.99.
-60% of the 30 top grossing apps used the same price for 2 or more items.

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