Google official data: In-app purchases through the Play Store increased 700% year-on-year

Google held a seminar on how to make money on Android at the 2013 I/O conference, and at the beginning of the conference, Google announced the latest data on Play Store revenue. Although Google's latest subscription model has achieved some results, there is no doubt that the biggest growth still comes from in-app purchases.

Google said that in-app purchases through the Play Store have increased by 700% year-on-year, which is reflected in the Play Store's top-selling app rankings. The subscription feature, which was released only last year, is also making progress, doubling its revenue every quarter. Some apps that use subscriptions as their only revenue channel have also entered the top-selling list, such as Pandora.

Subscription services are lagging behind in-app purchases, so Google believes it is necessary to consider which revenue model to use when developing apps. Ibrahim Elbouchikhi, the conference moderator and Google Play product business and monetization manager, said that even apps with a one-time payment can make it to the list, which proves that the free value-added experience has an overwhelming trend.

Another key trend is that the purchase tendency on tablets is higher than on mobile phones. Google requires developers to develop applications optimized for tablets, saying that the purchase rate on tablets is 1.7 times higher than on mobile phones. In addition, upgrading applications can take advantage of the platform. On average, the monetization rate of new versions of applications is 2.2 times higher than that of old versions.

For Google, making these things clear allows developers to intuitively feel the benefits of converting applications to tablet versions, while also showcasing many new features and showing off the updates to the Android system. At present, Google's efforts to improve the monetization of Android users seem to have paid off. El Bauch Koch said that Android's average revenue per user (ARPU) has increased 2.5 times year-on-year.