In a press release this morning Amazon announced that the Appstore now has over 240,000 apps and games, triple what it had last year. And, according to a new survey, Kindle Fire developers are seeing more revenues than on other platforms.
The IDC study, commissioned by Amazon, reports that based on surveys sent to 360 smartphone and tablet developers, 65% of developers said that total revenue on Kindle Fire is the same or better than developers’ experience with other platforms. 74% of the same developers said that average revenue per app/user is the same or better on Kindle Fire than other platforms.
According to an Amazon press release:
“Developers tell us that they experience improved reach, greater monetization, and, oftentimes, higher revenue when they have their apps and games in the Amazon Appstore,” said Mike George, Vice President of Amazon Appstore and Games. “But this is just the beginning—we’re building more services and capabilities for developers and more Android-based APIs based on their feedback. Most Android apps just work on Kindle Fire, and with an Appstore made for Android devices, Amazon’s Appstore can help developers distribute their apps on Android devices all over the world. It’s a great time for developers to bring their apps to the Amazon Appstore.”
The announcement and survey may be a bit self-serving and may have been timed to coincide with Amazon’s expected release of a new smartphone later this week. Amazon may be attempting to get people talking and thinking about developing for the new device. The press release spends a lot of space reminding developers that Amazon offers all kinds of tools and services to developers such as access to Amazon Web Services’ (AWS), Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and Amazon DynamoDB plus things like SNS Mobile Push, in-app purchasing, mobile adds, A/B testing, analytics and more.
I wonder if this renewed discussion about Kindle Fire development is an indication that their new smartphone might be closer to a Kindle Fire when it comes to developers than just another Android device.
