Microsoft has just announced that it has sold more than 40 million Windows 8 licenses so far; the figure includes those to OEMs and other partners. It’s pretty known that Windows 8 went live on October 25 this year, and the company has reached such whopping figure in just a month period. However, the company was initially lashed out for poor availability of the OS supported apps (in terms of number), but now, it has achieved a prestigious level.
According to new stats from Distimo, just a month ahead of the launch of Windows 8, more than 20,000 applications are available for the OS in Windows Store. Interestingly, the daily download volume of the top 300 apps in Microsoft’s app store is already three times higher than the top 300 apps in Apple Mac Store.
But it should be understood that the daily download volume of the apps can’t decide revenues for app stores. Ironically, some 86% of all Windows 8 apps are available at free of cost and this is the reason why Apple continues to generate five times more revenue on its Mac store compare to Microsoft on its Windows Store.
This time, Microsoft is aggressive to gear up application figure for Windows 8- powered Tablets and PCs. More importantly, Apple has just 13,000 apps for Mac and whooping 275,000 apps for iPads. In terms of overall applications, Apple App Store and Google Play Store are far ahead of Windows Store–there are more than 1 million approved apps in Apple App Store and more than 700,000 apps in Google Play Store.
More than 10% of apps (top 300) in Windows Store are popular to specific countries. It seems that developers are more likely to make language-specific apps. In Japan, 41% of the top apps are in Japanese language, while 30% of Korea’s top apps are in Korean language.
Microsoft has succeeded to impress local audiences due to its effective marketing campaigns. It has targeted the local audience to make hoard of cash, and that is the reason why Windows Store has strong proportion of local apps.
Furthermore, about 55% apps in Windows Store cost below $2.00. The price list of some top Windows Store’s apps:
Microsoft is still struggling to generate money from its apps. The question here is; Could Microsoft manage to generate more paid contents in its Windows Store? However, Microsoft offers developers an 80% cut on revenue for each app download through Windows Store unlike Android or iOS platforms. It might be one of the company’s stunts to entice a significant number of developers towards Windows platform.
Moreover, you should not be confused with the myth that growing revenue is directly proportion to the monetization of app. It depends upon number of apps download and average price of apps. It’s true that monetization of apps will help the company to generate more revenue in the future. However, the Windows Store has already succeeded to drive lots of downloads, but the company still has to work hard.
Image Courtesy: DISTIMO
