Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2010/03/02/android_app_profit/

Android app brings in $13K a month

It's not just iPhone developers who get rich

By Bill Ray

Posted in On-Prem, 2nd March 2010 14:46 GMT

One Android developer is earning more than $400 a day from his find-your-car application, proving it's not just Apple fans who'll pay for basic apps.

Much has been made of the millions awaiting those who decide to develop for Apple's iPhone: the UK government even sponsored a help guide. But Google fans will be pleased to hear that there's money in Android too with one developer reporting earnings topping $13,000 a month for an application that remembers where you've parked your car.

Car Locator works by recording when you park, using the embedded GPS, then alerts you when the meter needs feeding and provides a distance and direction to guide you back. It's been selling in the Android Marketplace for the last five months, and is now bringing in some serious cash for developer Edward Kim.

There's a free version, which Kim reckons has been downloaded 70,000 times, but only a tenth of that number has downloaded the paid version. That version was originally priced at $1.99, but then bumped up to $3.99 without halving revenue (resulting in greater income from fewer customers).

That bodes well - iPhone users are a lot more price sensitive, though that may change if the Android Marketplace gets swamped with $1 apps, as iTunes is. Lots of cheap applications lower the perceived value of all, which is something of a bugbear to iPhone developers.

So it seems that mobile application developers can make a living without kowtowing to Apple's increasingly capricious acceptance policy, which has got to be good news for everyone. ®