Ovi Store Sales (or the lack thereof)
Posted 24 Nov 2009 by Akinwale Ariwodola
Short version: No, they have not been very encouraging.Long version: I currently have 3 applications published to the Ovi Store, SimpleIRC, Sliding8 and Ultimate Stopwatch at €5, €2 and €1 respectively and between them, only 136 units have been sold (41, 28 and 67 respectively). Total revenue so far is just €147.53. I thought I was supposed to be getting 70% (yes, I read the small print on the front page of Ovi Publish and thought it'd probably turn out to be at least 60%) but this works out to only 44% (of €5*41 + €2*28 + €1*67). And they call it estimated revenue. Good thing I don't exclusively depend on the sales as my source of income.
How'd this happen? The amount you earn per sale varies greatly depending on where your app gets sold. I'm going to use SimpleIRC as a case study. With screenshots. Everyone loves screenshots. It's also been on the store for the longest period of time (almost 3 months). A couple of user reviews have complained it's expensive, so it's only fair to show how much I'm earning per sale in order to justify the cost. It also bothers me that some people think that they're entitled to get something for free. Fact: developing applications takes time and money. Free applications are a great thing, yes, but there are developers who are out to make money as well.
For each sale in most European countries - and this is probably due to high taxes or operator billing or both - I make ~€1.70 to €2.87 per sale; for example, €1.88 in the United Kingdom, €1.76 in Germany and €2.87 in Italy. It's a bit of a mixed bag outside Europe. In Australia, I make €1.89 (probably operator billing?) or €2.60 (direct store sale?) per sale. In the United States, it's €2.14. In Kuwait, Turkey or Japan, I make €3.22 on each sale which is closer to what I was expecting. In Israel, I make €3.50. Seventy per cent! That's more like it. But I've only sold one there. Dear Israel, buy more units of SimpleIRC. Thanks.
Looking at the sales reports, I think there were a few problems with the store during the later part of September which caused the application not to show up in the store search results. The good thing is that the application actually sells. Perhaps, if I had a jumbo-sized marketing budget, there would be considerably more sales. The only sort of promotion I've been able to do for now are forum posts and paid ads on GetJar. I'm also hoping to get a few popular review sites to take a look at my application and give a verdict. We'll see how that goes. Of course, other developers may have had more success than I have but I haven't found anyone who's released sales figures. So to keep in line with Internet tradition, I'd say "FIRST!"
Perhaps, I also need to give the store more time to become widely adopted. Most sales come from the touchscreen devices which already have the Ovi Store client installed out of the box. I also have an application and a game that I plan to develop and release at the end of the year and I'd be developing more applications when I get the ideas and the time. Ultimately, I'm happy there are people out there who use my applications and it'd be nice if I could interact with them. I have forums set up for each of the products for user feedback, suggestions and bug reports.
So we wait!
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