App developers dilemma: promotion fee three years up to ten years of life up to six months

From 100 to 100,000, App developers experienced explosive growth in five years. In stark contrast, the App market has moved into a red-sea period where only about 20% of developers can make a profit, from the age of "just a few apps a few thousand dollars a month." Among them, the days of individual developers were especially sad . Earlier this year, an article entitled "The Death of an Individual Developer" triggered a heated debate over the Weibo, which revealed that "until 4 am, it gets up at 9 am and has more than half of white hair in one year. More than 1,000 yuan a month in revenue. " What restricts the development of individual developers? App developers and how to break through?

Industry Status

A developer of the road to transformation

"App developer is dead."

Zhu Lianxing said this. He is one of the earliest App Developers in China and one of the earliest entrepreneurs to make money in the App Store, and now his focus has shifted from App development to Audio QR code promotion.

In July 2008, Apple Inc. held its first iPhone developer training in China, with only a few dozen people participating. Zhu Lianxing was one of them. A month later, Zhu Lianxing and his team - 139 .ME became China's first developers to join Apple's App Store.

Zhu Lianxing developed the first product called the "life cycle calculator", the application can be based on the user's birth time and bad habits, calculate the time of death, priced at 6 yuan, this product can get a few thousand dollars a month's revenue. Five months later, the 139.ME second application on the line, mainly to measure the female physiological cycle, according to Zhu Lianxing revealed that this application is selling well. Apple App Store was only about 15,000 applications at that time, "just a small application can earn thousands of dollars a month." Zhu Lianxing once described the then App market.

Really Zhu Lianxing and his team double reputation is a game called "Colorful Aquarium" game, the game uses 3D technology to render fish, the game screen is very beautiful, the user can arrange fish tank in their iPhone, Fish, you can also buy different themes as aquarium background. It's not surprising that such a well-made game can be successful in the age of "just a small application can make money." "Colorful Aquarium" Zhu Lianxing every day to bring more than 1,000 dollars in revenue, two months on the line over 1 million downloads, when the iPhone holdings but also 150 million.

"Colorful Aquarium", Zhu Lianxing also developed a 3D version of music games, production standards and playability than the "colorful aquarium" has greatly improved, Zhu Lianxing feel that this game will be able to fire on the line, the result is Did not make money, then they have done several software also are the same end. Zhu Lianxing told the Beijing Commercial Daily reporter, the latter part of the game are invested hundreds of thousands of dollars, while the revenue is only a few dollars a day. Zhu Lianxing seems to be behind the reasons for two things: First, App more and more competition in the market more and more intense; the other is now on the market brush list and other chaos have appeared, without strong financial support, the new application often only Become a cannon fodder. "The market has changed so fast," Zhu Lianxing told Beijing Business Daily. "There is not much room left for individual developers."

Reason to explore

Three years to promote the cost of ten times

In the gradual transformation of the Blue Ocean into the Red Sea, the most rapid change is the promotion cost of the App.

"Our company was established in 2010, at that time a small number of App, each developed a game will have domestic and foreign media initiative to report, so basically a game on the line two or three days to the search engine search can search a lot The result, and now unless the game is very good or you are willing to throw money in order to enjoy this treatment. "Beijing one hundred and eighty-one technology founder Liang Weiguo memories.

Wang Jia Liang, who had already entered the market in 2008, feels more about the cost of promotion. Wang Jia Liang, CEO of TouchPal mobile software, recalls that in the first place, the number of apps in many platforms was very small. In order to attract more developers, the application store would take the initiative to provide recommendations for developers. After the number of apps surged, App App upload applications need to submit an application, the recommended bit you need to sponsor to change, the initial sponsorship is some small gifts, by 2010, the recommended bits must be real money to buy, when the price is a few hundred dollars to A thousand dollars, up to now, a recommended bit of the price is often on the million.

Deng Xin, general manager of discourse technology has counted an account: "R & D an App, only two ways to go. One is the big platform, one is their own propaganda. With the cooperation of the platform, they can only be divided into about 20% of revenue, Even if it is 10 million yuan to the running account points to the hands of only 1 million -1.5 million yuan.Its own publicity, is to rent a position to send a leaflet, for the small team is too difficult, the risk is too large, it may lose. "In addition to the recommended bits and media coverage, the leaderboards in the app store are also places where military strategists contend. The higher the ranking, the greater the chance for users to see it.

According to a mobile data survey disclosed by Baidu officials, the top 1000 Apps (accounting for less than 0.1% of total applications) in the App Store accounted for 55% of the total downloads. That means millions of apps, less than one-thousandth of users can get the favor. The survey also showed that in the third quarter of 2012, the high-frequency App, which had a large download volume, accounted for 83% of the users' usage, up from 85% in the first quarter of this year.

In order to snatch a limited list of locations, App development companies have hired people to brush the list. Happy Network CEO Cheng Binghao has revealed to the media, the current application store charts can see the application, in addition to essential applications, 99% are by "brush list" brush out.

Personal developers are struggling

In July of this year, Google, the developer of the world's leading smartphone operating system Android, announced that the number of apps provided by Google Play, its online application store, has officially exceeded 1 million. In September, Apple announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference that the total number of iOS apps reached 1.25 million. Even the third-ranked Windows Phone Store also announced in August that the number of applications has topped 170,000, an alarming rate of growth of 145,000 three months ago. Behind this "awesome" app is the sheer number of app developer communities. Public figures show that the number of App developers in China has reached 100,000, up from about 100 five years ago.

"In 2008, a large-scale App development company in the country can count on two hands. Most of the practitioners are small team assignments. In terms of the total number of developers, the real development of App development is 100 full-time "Said Wang Jia Liang.

If a few years ago the App market is a blue ocean, then the App market is already a Red Sea.

There are two main ways for App to make money: paid downloads and implanted ads. As we all know, domestic users pay habits are not good, App often get advertising through advertising.

According to Tencent mobile security laboratory analysis, currently in the mobile App industry chain, most of the App developers are facing profit difficulties, as of now, advertising is still the most profitable sources of App revenue. Advertisers in the first ads will be concerned about how much the App downloads, the number of user groups, in the monotonous situation, App developers gradually lost the right to bargain. Wang Jia Liang told Beijing Commercial Daily reporter revealed that although the market looks hot, but the domestic App companies can make profitable few.

To add insult to injury, App life is now shorter and shorter, which shows that leaving developers less time to make money. This is particularly evident in the game App. Liang Weiguo told the Beijing Commercial Daily reporter, now a gaming App life is at most six months.

To App game "crazy guess map", for example, this game on line in June this year, then quickly boarded the Apple Store first free application list, in a month's time to reach 20 million downloads, the Baidu Index users concern also spiked from 5000 to a peak of 140,000. However, in just one week, its index dropped by nearly 70% and returned to 50,000.