Android domestic developer caught in a profit dilemma version too poor to pay

Will Android be the Terminator to the Apple Empire?

With the release of Google's latest quarterly report, Henry Brockett, a leading American technology blogger, has drawn comments from prominent media such as The New York Times, with an article called Android that will overturn everything, rim and the iphone's death. According to the source, the company has captured 7% of its market share in the US in the past 3 quarters, which should make Apple investors "scared to death".

Google revealed that the global user installed Android program has more than 3 billion, the first quarter of this year's download volume growth of 50%, the daily activation of Android devices up to 350,000 units. With the rapid growth of Android handset sales, the number of downloads for Android apps is increasing rapidly: the figure reached 1 billion times for 20 months, 2 billion times for 5 months, and 3 billion for 2 months. With more and more handsets and tablets such as handheld terminals starting to use the Android system, it appears that Google is looking to repeat the search engine market victory in this area. What does Android bring to the industry chain? How does the entire Android chain feed profits under the booming production? With a series of questions, "daily economic news" launched a survey. This issue of 3C weekly, we will look to the Android platform application developers--

2007, Google launched the Android phone operating system, the industry sought after.

While Android's market share is growing, many developers on its industrial chain are still in a difficult position to profit. Industry insiders point out that for smartphone platforms, apps and developers are important weights for wooing users, and that the most critical factor for a platform to attract developers is revenue. The iphone makes it easy to make money from Apple's platform by making so many developers flock to it.

So what is the revenue situation for application developers on the Android platform?

Three developers lose money

Analysys International, which conducted research in October 2010, found that 31% of the Android app developer team was at a loss, with 19% of the team earning less than 10,000 yuan.

"So far, we haven't made any money from the Android platform," he said. "The relevant people responsible for millet technology said to the daily economic news.

Millet technology launched in April 2010, focusing on Android, iphone and other smartphone software and mobile Internet Hotspot application development, its products include rice chat, millet sharing, millet reading, millet notes, millet driver, mobile phone browser charming, and so on, each product downloads are in Level 2 million, This is at the upper level of the domestic Android developer.

However, a single product more than 2 million of the download does not bring a significant income for millet technology. It is revealed that the millet technology on the Android platform products are free, nor through advertising to obtain revenue. Although the above officials did not disclose the specific operating costs, but he said that the current Millet technology team of about 150 people, the company on the Android platform cost is mainly labor costs, office rent and product operating costs, this is a small fee.

The experience of millet technology is not a case.

Joinmobile team was founded in July 2010, the core members of 5 people, has been in the Android platform to promote its products "orange conversion", although the market response is good, but did not bring any benefits. At present, the team has merged with Colossus AO, which is mainly engaged in iOS development, supplemented by Android development.

"Handy Remember" is Kingdee launched a bookkeeping product, the product from May 2010 on the Apple store shelves, has been 8 consecutive months in the top 50 sales list, sales far higher than the Android platform.

According to Gufeng, vice president of Kingdee Friends, the product in Android is about millions of of the revenue, but, compared with tens of millions of development costs, this part of the income is very meager.

Compared with the dismal Android, Apple's App store last month used millions of dollars in apps, such as the game Infinityblade, which began selling on December 9, 2010, selling 4 days of sales that topped 200,000, a $1.6 million trillion revenue.

The Android platform's first million wealth story is also an "angry bird" transplanted from Apple's platform. The game won 1 million of billions of dollars in advertising revenue in the first month of the Android platform, but it is far from the tens of millions of dollars on the App store.

The industrial chain is the main

"For application developers, in Apple's ecosystem, developers don't have to care about the channel and distribution of the product, as long as the product is done, and Android is not that simple," said Liang, founder of the Beijing-Rui-chi company, in an interview with the Daily economic news.

In the "mobile phone Head" Company vice President Wang Jun, Android came out, the industry is very excited, hope that this open platform can do a good job, however, it is due to the open platform, Android, there are some problems, including the Android version too, And the incompatibility between each other makes developers quite a headache.

Wang Jun Frankly, compared to Apple ios,android platform development is much less difficult, but compatibility is the bottleneck. "For example, 10,000 users with Apple, we only need to develop once, but for Android, 10,000 users may be 10 vendors or operators split up, the developer needs to develop 10 times to get the same number of users revenue." ”

Wang Jun that the Android platform is open, creates an illusion that openness can reduce costs and win more users, but in fact, in an open model, each role in the industry chain is the owner, and even the parties want to involve a wider range of areas, which increases developer cost and maintenance costs.

The valley wind is sympathetic. According to him, in order to ensure that Kingdee's "handy memory" products in the normal operation of Android, need to send a person responsible for daily with the hardware manufacturers on the Android platform to communicate, do product adaptation, which will add an additional 10% or so cost.

Ryestudio founder Lu Yu, as well as Beijing smart fast-beat Information Technology Co., Ltd. CEO Pengfei that the different versions of the adaptation of the Android platform for the product to increase the cost of 30% than iOS, because a software needs to dozens of hardware vendors to do different adaptation.

"The biggest difference developers face when it comes to Android and Apple's iOS platform is that the latter is more of a traditional software industry than a developer, a good game to sell in the App Store, and Android must be involved in the industry chain." "Innovation Workshop Dim Sum OS Project Coo Huang Zhuang said that the future of Android is visible to everyone, but now open source is causing the versions to split. For developers, such a cost is very high, and the second is very difficult to maintain.

Poor payment channels

For now, the real problem that the Android camp needs to solve is how to make a profit. However, due to the poor payment channels, many development teams can hardly profit by selling products.

It is understood that at present, the Android platform for domestic developers profit channel there are probably two kinds: one is to download the payment, the second is advertising. Download pay is Google Androidmarket most basic charging method, developers just upload their own software development, set prices, users download, developers can earn revenue.

The reality, however, is that Androidmarket's payment channels are open only to 13 countries and regions, and that Asia is unable to purchase paid applications except Japan. This has caused the androidmarket income in China to be difficult to scale. By contrast, Apple's App Store allows users in 90 countries and regions to buy apps.

Gu Feng pointed out that, due to the lack of payment channels, "conveniently remember" fee products can only be paid through Taobao shop or with the official website to pay to buy. After the user pays the success will obtain a registration code, the registration code binds an account number.

"There is no convenience through third-party embedding, and if a user does not have a third party account, it is likely to waive payment." Gametox, head of the application development team, Shengnan the daily economic news.

In addition, there are too few domestic paying subscribers, and it is one reason why Android developers are struggling to make a profit.

According to Liang, one of the video players that his company sells on the Android platform is the use of free advertising, which allows users to pay for ads without advertising, but less than 5% of the product's more than 3 million-terminal downloads are really willing to pay.

This means that for China's Android developers, the most viable way to make money right now is to use a free advertising model, but the profit outlook for this model remains bleak.

Currently, there are few ads on the Android platform in the Chinese market. Shengnan points out that its company downloads a product of 40,000 times, with Android apps built in advertising revenue of just 78 dollars.

"Android is far less effective than Apple, and it has to be done in other ways to make up for revenue," he said. Liang said that 80% of developers are now serving a wide variety of companies that need to lay out Android platforms, and that the independent development team, as long as they have the strength, will be able to juggle multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, Symbian and Windows, To get more revenue and reduce risk.

However, Pengfei that the Android industry chain's profit model is still being explored, compared with the advertising profit model, Pengfei is more likely to be in the case of good products, implant industry applications.

Although developers are struggling for the time being, the Valley wind thinks Android is still a platform for the sun, and one reason for this is that Android handsets have a smaller share of the domestic market. According to data, China's Android phone holdings were 300多万部 in the third quarter of last year, a far cry from Nokia's sales of 60 million in the first 3 quarters of the Chinese market in 2010. &NBSP