The brutal truth? Most apps sink without a trace

Apple's announcement at WWDC earlier in the week that it has paid out $5 billion to iOS app developers since the launch of the App Store in 2008 provides a fertile starting point for some market analysis. Technology blog Asymco has published an excellent post crunching the numbers, noting that the App Store currently generates 49.5 million app downloads every day, and has a run rate of $4.3 billion a year. That's revenues from sales of paid apps and in-app purchases on iOS alone, although it excludes advertising and other revenue streams (plush toys, hardware accessories and so on). Still, apps are hugely lucrative, right? Well, for some developers. For many more, they're not at all. Industry analyst Canalys has been conducting its own research, with senior analyst Tim Shepherd making a sobering claim: "We estimate that up to two-thirds of the apps in leading consumer app store catalogues receive fewer than 1,000 downloads in their first year, and a significant proportion of those get none at all."