Windows Phone 7 developer releases sales data & its not good

Apparently Microsoft is ashamed of the sales of Windows Phone 7 so far judging by their unwillingness to talk about sales numbers but now there is some data available thanks to a developer giving an idea just how bad things are doing.  Given the fact that Windows Phone 7 is still not on carriers like Verizon and is sharing shelf space with Android and the iPhone 4 in AT&T stores, its not too surprising but I would say things need to improve and quickly if they are going to keep developers interested in the platform.

krashlander sales
krashlander sales graph by wmpoweruser.com

Windows Phone 7 developer Jeff Weber has created an application called Krashlander that is currently sitting at #32 on the list of top paid apps with a 4 star rating on the Windows Phone 7 platform but is still only averaging 17 sales per day.  The app is also only $.99.  Thanks to the trail feature of the Windows Phone 7 platform, the application has been downloaded 2420 times with only 680 purchases as shown in the graph above.  That seems kind of sad for something that high on the list of paid apps.  After Microsoft takes its cut (30% I think), that is barely enough to buy lunch every day.  This isn’t unprecedented as the early days of Android saw something similar with one company that had the #5 and #12 best selling apps only averaging $60 a day and that is including other apps they had created which weren’t so popular.  Still, those are some very disappointing numbers for those thinking Windows Phone 7 presents a big opportunity.


Posted

in

,

by

Comments

3 responses to “Windows Phone 7 developer releases sales data & its not good”

  1. JeffWeber Avatar
    JeffWeber

    Krashlander is my game.  WP7 is very new, what would you expect the sales to be?  I don’t think the numbers mean a whole lot this early on.  Lets see where things stand a year from now.

    Foe now I’m fine with the numbers I’ve gotten.

  2. Jeremy Bray Avatar
    Jeremy Bray

    I’m glad to hear you are ok with those numbers but I am worried that devs on other mobile platforms that have been eyeing the WP7 platform might be scared off by the fact that something that is as high on the list of top paid apps as your app is will be scared off by the idea of only selling 17 apps a day, especially after Microsoft takes its cut.  I’ve already heard devs complain that Microsoft won’t be cutting them any checks until February anyway so news like this isn’t likely to set anybody on fire for the platform.  There is no doubt that it is very new but considering their unwillingness to share numbers which they were also ashamed to talk about for the Kin, I don’t see it as a very good sign for the platform although I do think that has more to do with the providers that it is on more than anything.  I would still think they they would be wanting to say something if they had a better selling platform than the disaster that was the Kin, even if it can’t compare to better established platforms like Android, iOS and Blackberry.  As an Android dev in the early days of Android, I saw that sales weren’t that great when the install base was small but even when it grew it still wasn’t all that good.  I fear that will be a problem that plagues WP7 as well although hopefully WP7 users won’t be as cheap as Android users are documented to be.

  3. […] to know if the average developer is really making any money from their efforts.  If it is like the numbers we shared earlier this month for one Windows Phone 7 developer, I am not impressed. Tweet This […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.