Half of all app store revenue goes to just 25 developers

Apple's App Store and the Google Play store each claim to offer over 700,000 apps to choose from, but only a tiny fraction of them bring in significant revenue for their developers, according to research from analyst firm Canalys. In fact, the company says, of the $120 million in total revenue generated from paid app downloads and in-app purchases in the US during the first 20 days of November 2012, fully half was split between just 25 developers.

All but one of those top 25 earners were game developers, including Disney, Electronic Arts, Gameloft, Glu, Kabam, Rovio, Storm8, and Zynga, among others. On average, Canalys found that 145 of the top 300 apps in the Apple App Store were games during its sample period, while the format accounted for 116 of the top 300 apps on Google Play. The one exception on the top-earners list was Pandora, which markets the popular Pandora Radio app for its personalized music service.