VISIONMOBILE:2013 Mobile Developer Economic Report (i): Key content (I.)

VisionMobile used to launch the mobile developer Economic Report once a year, but in 2013 the developer Economics 2013:the Tools reports were released at the beginning of the year, changing too quickly to a half-yearly period. In VisionMobile's numerous reports, I think developer economics is the most attractive and one-off translation.

2013 Developer Economics Report: Development tools: Fundamentals of Application Economics

This is the 4th issue of the VisionMobile Developer Research Series, which covers platform benchmarks, screens & revenue, and analyzes six developer tools camps from AD networks to voice services.

Key Content

The report is visionmobile based on a recent survey of 3,460 developers in 95 countries, as well as interviews with developers and in-depth research. Developer sampling balanced distribution in North America, Europe and Asia.

Mobile Market Duopoly

mobile phone industry annual compound growth rate is 23%. Despite the pessimism of many handset makers, the annual compound growth rate for the industry has stabilized at 23% per cent since 2009. Growth is driven by rising smartphone sales, which now exceed 40% of total handset sales, as low-cost Android devices quickly erode the market share of functional handsets.

duopoly game. in 2012, smartphone shipments 700 million (700M), supported by the mobile platform duopoly Google and Apple, added up to 80% of mobile developers ' favor (psychological share). Samsung and Apple, the handset-maker, stand out as they add up to 46% of the smartphone market, accounting for 98% of the mobile phone industry's profits in the eight largest handset OEMs. Excluding Apple, the rest of the handset industry has a 2009-year profit margin, which means Apple has gained all the added value of its introduction to the app-based mobile computing paradigm. At the same time, Samsung quickly shifted from a functional handset maker to a smartphone leader, earning the remaining profits and eating away at the old powerhouse Nokia profits. Nokia has been slow to move from the best mobile to the best in its competitive base.

Samsung profit factor. as the largest handset OEM in 2012 years, the success of Samsung smartphones is mainly attributed to three different factors: first, own the most expensive hardware components in-house, ensuring the earliest right to use and the lowest BOM (bill of materials). Second, for the latest release of the Android software version, Samsung is the fastest to launch new smartphones to the market. Third, Samsung's powerful Galaxy brand and marketing campaign has helped it stand out from the 10 andriod handset makers.

the sales ratio for tablets and PCs is 1:3, but is expected to be flat for the next 1-2 years. To the PC of the duopoly Microsoft and Intel, which will be the key turning point, they are looking at the once computing domain dominance that is being moved by the mobile, while moving there by the Android-dominated platform, authorized by arm of the Qualcomm and MediaTek-led chip.

Platform Gain and loss

developers flock around the ios/android, but still look for viable replacements . Android's success in the consumer market has continued to dominate mobile developers, with 72% of developers developing on Android, up 4% from the 2012 survey. iOS showed a 5% drop in developers ' favor, and we think the main reason is that the new influx of Asian developers is obviously prone to Android. The popularity of developers varies by region, with Android in Asia and Europe, and Android and iOS flat in North America. Developer intent to adopt Windows Phone (47%), BB10 (15%) is also quite large, suggesting that developers are still interested in a third viable application ecosystem.

HTML is the main technical competitor of Android and iOS duopoly. In mobile developers, HTML is the third most popular choice, with 50% of developers using an HTML-based technology set as a deployment platform (creating a mobile web App) or as a development platform (creating hybrid applications or translating HTML code into native apps). In general, HTML is more technically successful than the platform. The Firefox OS (and the previous webOS) is just trying to create a completely web-centric alternative to iOS and Android, including native platform APIs, as well as publishing and monetization applications. Therefore, HTML should not be considered a competition, but a complement to the native platform, reducing the cost of access to these platforms by lowering the threshold.

Windows Phone: If you buy it, the developer will come . Despite the high intention of the 2012 survey, WP remains at 21% developers ' preference. Developers seem to be waiting for the right market signal before they invest in the platform-the critical point of mobile phone volume. Despite the Windows Phone Challenge, Microsoft is still positioning Windows 8 as a tablet-compatible platform. Microsoft can reposition its mobile market share based on its strengths due to its powerful Microsoft copyright re-ordering.

BlackBerry developers prefer to remain stable in 16%, developers are in a state of readiness, looking forward to BB10 sales. In addition, the intention index, which means that the developer plans to adopt BlackBerry, has not diminished compared to the 2012 survey, showing some positive results from RIM's promotional efforts in releasing BB10. The Symbian favor index, on the contrary, is fast falling and can be expected to disappear, as did Samsung Bada, even though Bada surpassed WP sales in the third quarter of 2012.

78% of developers use more than two platforms at the same time, but the investment is concentrated in ios/android. At the same time, the developer's platform selection is narrowing. Our recent survey shows that mobile developers use 2.6 mobile platforms on average, compared with 2012 for 2.7 and 2011 for 3.2. 80% of our sample respondents were developed on Android,ios or both, making Android and iOS a basic choice for the platform portfolio. On average, developers who do not use these two platforms earn half of the users, and there is no doubt that developers will focus on two major ecosystems.

most developers prefer iOS. iOS is clearly superior in comparison to Android, with 42% of Apple/google developers taking advantage of Ios,android 31%. Selecting "Leading platform" has other factors, such as previous experience, local phone sales, but iOS in addition to the cost and learning curve (time spent on learning, etc.), all platform competition points are significant winners.

ios,android and BlackBerry are the leading platforms . In the commissioning of 3,460 developers, the platform with the highest priority is iOS, with 48% of iOS developers as the leading platform. IOS, Android and BlackBerry make up the leading platform for developers to use as the main development platform. Windows phone and HTML are extension platforms that developers often use to extend the reach of consumer groups or regions that are not adequately covered by the leading platform. Developers like the platform behind the Symbian,qt,flash and Javame, now as "gap filler" to solve the remaining market gaps.

HTML5 needs a better native platform API and development environment . For the developer of the Business & Production class (42% HTML developers), the Enterprise Class (32%), the Media Class (28%), HTML5 is a viable alternative to native. To compete with native, HTML5 needs better native API access (35% of the HTML developer Choice), better development Environment (34%), better commissioning (Debug) support (22%). More importantly, optimizing HTML5 devices without native API access or development environment is important, and we conclude that HTML supporters such as Facebook, Mozilla, and Google should focus on cross-platform tools and development environments, at least as much as they focus on the overall platform effect, such as on the Facebook platform, Firefox OS and Chrome OS.

tablet developers prefer to be flat with smartphones, but TV is still a niche. Most of the 3,460 developers surveyed (86%) developed for smartphones, while many also developed on tablets, especially iOS developers (76%), showing the ipad as an attractive development and monetization platform. TV development is still small (6% of Android Developers), and the "smart TV" experience is at the earliest stage of the hype cycle.

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