Read this is you want to be depressed about Android sales 
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20066467-248.html?tag=cnetRiver
Just came out on Cnet today.
80 percent of paid apps have not reached 100 downloads yet. That is terrible. I know you can make money throwing ads all over the place, but still that is bad.
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Wow ggindlesperger. Just wow. I’m sure many of those apps cost $1. That means they haven’t even pulled in $70 profit (after 70% cut) since the Android market opened?
Here in Canada you are pretty much forced to go on a data plan when you buy an iPhone. Is this the same in other countries? I wonder if this plays a factor, since almost all iPhone users are online whereas Android users are given an option?
Nonetheless, this is very shocking to me. [import]uid: 31262 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 38316[/import]
In the US you need a data plan. That is how they subsidize the cost of the phones. Some of the Android phones are free if you sign up for a 2 year contract. AT&T selling iPhone 3GS for $49.00. They may still be doing that, I do not know.
My favorite advertising thing they all do is that they say you can have unlimited data for just $29.99 a month. Like $30 a month is cheap on top of what your normal bill is. Then they make it sound like a deal that for just $20.00 more you can make it a hotspot. So to use the phone to its max ability they want $50.00 a month on top of your normal plan just for the data. They say what a deal that is.
Cell service is right up there with insurance and oil as the biggest rip offs in the US. [import]uid: 8533 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 38324[/import]
Must be nice as in Canada we do not have unlimited data plans. The average is about 500MB - 1GB for an extra $30 a month on top of your monthly plan. If you’re lucky like I am you can get an introductory price, which gets me 6GB for $30 a month. [import]uid: 31262 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 38327[/import]
Carlos, Ansca, are you listening to this?
If I understand your priorities in the past few months, you have been focusing alot of your time and resources on the Android side of Corona. “Knee-deep in Android” was a line I seem to remember hearing.
Apparently this is not what your customers (us!) desire, at least not the majority of us. If most Corona developers are seeing vastly better sales and downloads on iOS, that should be your priority, not Android. Alot of us (myself included) love Corona because it’s multi-platform, and I’m not suggesting that you let the Android side wither and lag behind. It’s probably a big selling point for Corona as an SDK, even with mediocre app sales on the Android market. And, money to Ansca means a better product for all of us. But if you have 50% of your team wresting with Android while long-awaited iOS and core improvements get delayed, I sincerely suggest you consider this entire topic of discussion.
I am just one developer and one Corona customer. I might someday release apps for Android and/or Nook, but for now the focus (like several others, it seems) is iOS and the flourishing App Store. This is just my two cents, and I mean no offense to the Ansca team, management, or anything else. [import]uid: 9747 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 38333[/import]
I really do not have a problem with Corona. I am sure they thought just like I did. WOW with Android market share it would be great to be on Android. Now I have been around the cell business a while so I knew that Androids numbers are misleading because so many of those phones are just that “Phones”. People do not go buy an iPod just because they want an MP3 player. People do not buy an iPhone just because they want to make calls.
You can not say this for Android. So many of their sales are simply the fact that it is the only other smartphone. Not to offend RIM but Blackberry has it’s special type of business customer and they are losing them. For 4 years if you were on Verizon (most popular cell provider) and you wanted a smart phone, you got an Android. Good lord I sold my iPhone 3GS to get a Moto Droid just because AT&T was awful in my area. Count me as a Droid users who is switching right back when my contract is up. My point is an iPhone, iPod, iPad sale is sale to a customer who wants the entire experience that goes with it, app store included. Many Android sales are people who wanted a phone that could browse the net and e-mail.
No offense to the Android people. If that is what they want, Android is the right choice. So I knew Android sales would not be what Apples were because of this factor, BUT i had no idea it was this bad. I know I can advertise and do more to help it, but seriously I am afraid too. I am afraid to spend $300-$600 on advertising and only see a slight increase.
I believe I said this in a post above. With no advertising at all, Apple sells more in one day, than Google has sold in a month. Three weeks on Amazon, no sales. Now I know the game I am talking about “Hairy Legs” is no game changer. It was a simple, funny game we put together in a month with a tool called GLBasic and recently converted it to Corona.
My only concern with Corona is not only do they have to deal with Apple and Google, now we have Windows involved. I have noticed many of the fixes as of late are Windows related. Windows can only do Android so they have to invest time and money to support Windows, that can only build for Android, which is not near as productive as Apple. I guess for their business it is great for them to pull in Windows people, but if all they can do is Android, they may lose some of them people once they see Android sales. According to that report from Cnet, they will not even make enough money to cover the Corona cost on Android. Facts are, some will get lucky, most won’t. [import]uid: 8533 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 38341[/import]
My only concern with Corona is not only do they have to deal with Apple and Google, now we have Windows involved. I have noticed many of the fixes as of late are Windows related. Windows can only do Android so they have to invest time and money to support Windows, that can only build for Android, which is not near as productive as Apple.
I agree. This expands on my comments above. While a multi-platform SDK sounds great on paper (and is, theoretically), what factors dictate how Ansca spreads its resources to cover all platforms on a basically “equal” level? Poor sales on the Android market should be the most important factor, in my opinion… not the number of Corona Android developers. I will likely offend some of you Android developers out there, but at this time the App Store is dominating the app industry in sales and revenue.
And at this time I know alot of us iOS developers have been waiting a long time for some core Corona API enhancements. The Sprite library improvements/bugs have been months “under construction” but seemingly will get attention soon. Would this have happened 6 months ago if not for resources being diverted to Android/Windows? Would some bugs have been stomped out sooner?
Again, I don’t mean to sound too critical of Ansca. I love Corona; it’s an awesome SDK overall and I will continue using it. But money speaks and I’m not in this as a novelty or as a hobby. [import]uid: 9747 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 38344[/import]
My app is now selling about the same on iOS & Android. It started out much better on iOS, but quickly slowed down, and now Android is picking up. [import]uid: 4596 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 38362[/import]
It’s actually been selling better in the Android Market than iOS appstore, over the last week now = ) [import]uid: 4596 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 39472[/import]
Seeing a nice ramp up on Android over the last few weeks. Android sales are now on average 5x better than iOS sales now. I suspect one thing that helped was refining my keyword selection to target my intended audience. [import]uid: 4596 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 40856[/import]
singh206, glad to hear on the android front. developing my first game.
Question, when you talk about your “keyword selection”…do you just put your keywords in the actual description…or is there some sort of special field for keywords…when uploading your app to the android market.
Any help would be much appreciated!
Paul [import]uid: 39506 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 40865[/import]
Yes, in the description.
I think an important step is to think precisely about who your target audience and what words they’re using to search for games like yours.
For example, if you’re a puzzle game, and your description/keywords are attracting people looking for Gun Bros or Angry Birds styled games, you’ll get people canceling their purchase & leaving bad comments/ratings, while also missing the people actually looking for puzzle games. That might be obvious to some. [import]uid: 4596 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 41239[/import]
@singh206 - what’s your app? I’d like to check it out 
Some other unrelated comments to various posts here:
Remember that people with newer phones are probably playing fancy games made by big companies. They have very high expectations, so may not bother downloading or playing your game. People on older os’s are fast running out of apps that are compatibile. Unless you need the super fast performance of those new devices, why not tap into those old devices 
Update you’re app on key days and key times to get in the ‘just in’ section. A lot of people check there because they get fed up of trying to search for new games and getting the same old hits back. You can be crafty and just compile the same code and up the version… not that i condone that kind of thing…
Make a free version and insert some ads. A large majority of android users only download free apps. This is because unlike iOS, you can sign up for an account and download from the market WITHOUT credit card information. I know this is possible on iOS too, but its not strait forward and most people don’t know its possible.
I posted my latest admob code here:
http://developer.anscamobile.com/forum/2011/03/20/got-admob-working-android
Ad keywords to the description, but be careful not to add irrelevant ones. A few bad comments about you trying to ‘trick’ people and its over for a while. For any given country the last 3 comments show up on the app page. Users need to click ‘more’ to see the rest. Usually their decision is made based on those first 3 comments. If you bought you’re own app or have friends that did, and rated it - edit your comment, even by one character and press submit. It’ll move right to the top. Only for you’re country tho remember.
Find as many forums as you can and post about your game there. Do it on the SAME day so your app shoots up, and you can ride that visibility for a while. I’ve posted on over 20 forums, and received my first 5k downloads in the first week or so because of it. Search ‘walkabout’ on google and you’ll get plenty of forum hits. Just post your game in the same section as I have - I have checked you’re allowed to post in those sections!
Some stats (total, free and paid):
Launch date 7th March
Android downloads approaching 50k (45k free, 4.3k paid)
Amazon downloads 90k (featured)
iOS downloads approaching 15k (plus 80k on free app day)
Other third party markets approx 5k
Ad revenue from free version:
iOS approx $10 to $15 a day
Androud approx $5 to $10 a day
Last months revenue in ads alone $600
^^ See what i mean [import]uid: 8872 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 42210[/import]
Reading all this makes me a sad panda.
Android is really good, on higher end devices and on par with iphone with performance.
The problem is as many people have mentioned is the crazy amount of device configurations…it’s insane. This is the biggest advantage and disadvantage no questions asked.
I do like the iOS platform as you have iphone, touch, ipad 1 and 2. People get mad at apple for being so closed black box style, but look at the success.
I own android device, and I REALLY want it to take off, but even my hardcore Pc lovin ass is starting to say “Hmm maybe I need to go to the dark side” (apple) hehe.
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I must be living in bizarro world, because my PAID app is more popular on Android than iOS, and my FREE app is more popular on iOS than Android. I expected the opposite because the paid app is geared more for children.
On Android the paid app has a gradual rise, with installs per day increasing steadily. On iOS it had an initial small bump, but has dropped like a rock.
Android
iOS
On Android the free app has minimal numbers with a short spike that has flatlined for sometime. On iOS it had 100x the numbers in much less time with a quick & steady decline.
Android
iOS
[import]uid: 4596 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 42295[/import]
@singh206,
Interesting sales figures, and congratulations on doing well in the Android market! It gives potential Android/Corona developers a glimmer of hope, but as others have pointed out, I think both the biggest advantage and the biggest crutch of Android is the swamped device market. Alot of devices use Android, and more seem to arrive every week. But that doesn’t mean they’re all good. I met a guy in Australia who had some hacked Android device made in Taiwan. It wasn’t even “branded”. He bought it because it was cheap. Would my game run on this? I have no idea.
As a developer, I’m going to wait and see how this unfolds. Some developers hate Apple’s “dictator” approach, but their devices basically work because they’re standardized. If you have an iPad and your software is up-to-date, it will run just like any other iPad with the same software. This is a big advantage to developers who simply can’t test on 74 different Android devices, nor justify using one of those “remote Android device testing companies” which I recently saw in a discussion here.
Anyway, best of luck and continued success with your game!
Brent
[import]uid: 9747 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 42298[/import]
@IgnisDesign
Thx, you can exclude Android devices per device, or by OS version. That can help limit your app reaching low-end devices. Although it’s not easy deciphering from the list, which are low performing devices. So far ratings aren’t being noticeably affected by low-end Android devices for my app. It’s at 4.5 stars. I like being on both platforms, they’re both great devices. I’m honestly surprised how things are playing out, it’s not what I expected based on the tons of articles about Android users paying for apps less than iOS users. [import]uid: 4596 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 42319[/import]
I sell a lot of games on Android (not Corona yet) but sales can be really good.
That being said, I downloaded your game and really struggled to figure out how to play it.
I think a REALLY simple popup when you first start playing that says to touch a ball and pull your finger back to shoot your opponent’s balls off would be a massive benefit. I have a feeling you’ll lose players who will just quit right away. [import]uid: 85633 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 52616[/import]
HI Ignis
I am really sorry to post non applicable comment to this post. But I have a doubt and for that i have posted in forum please follow the link and help me out if posible for you.
And friends I am really sorry for posting this here.
https://developer.coronalabs.com/forum/2012/10/09/database-sharing-lite-version-and-full-application [import]uid: 130269 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 126902[/import]
dude you just woke this thread from more than a year of sleeping [import]uid: 80469 topic_id: 10072 reply_id: 126930[/import]