back to article Booming Android ad revenue shows it’s no longer the poor cousin

Advertising revenue flowing back to app developers from Android apps has exceeded the amount returned to developers by Apple for the first time. Despite its lowly market share, iOS has long boasted of good returns from its app ecosystem, in terms of both purchases and ad revenue. Owners of Apple bling spend more and are worth …

  1. Stuart 22

    Blockheads

    Perhaps this just suggests Android's ad-blockers ain't working so well these days as ad slingers switch from the browsed content to the actual app.

    But then I've never clicked on one except by accident which gets easier by the day. So that was dosh (sorry valued ad revenue) down the drain for someone.

    1. MyffyW Silver badge

      Re: Blockheads

      My plump fingers are the only reason I ever (accidentally) click on an Ad. If some one works out how to enumerate that and send me to Cadbury's, Evans or Lane Bryant as a result all my attempts at internet security are for nought.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This seems to be including mobile web ad revenue

    All those comparisons that showed iOS ahead of Android were comparing only app related revenue - i.e. what you pay the app store / play store for apps, plus the ad revenue coming directly from those apps. That's what influences developers, they could care less which platform is more lucrative for ads coming over the web.

    It is hardly surprising that Android results in more web ad revenue than iOS, since there are five or six Android phones sold for each iPhone, so there's a lot more browsing coming from Android. Mobile web has been getting a larger and larger share of the overall online advertising budget, since people are less likely to use ad blockers on mobile and they are less effective. I guess that money is now enough to cancel out iOS' advantage in app revenue.

  3. Your alien overlord - fear me

    I think we've Facebook and Twitter to thank for these figures - both major ad-slingers and both have reasonable Android apps. I wonder what the figures would look like without these two !!!!

  4. Magani
    Linux

    Free as in... Oh, what's that over there...

    I have little time for ad-powered 'free' Android apps. I'll try a free app if I think it has potential for me, and if I like it, I'll pay for it (Most Android apps are a only cup of coffee or two).

    If I don't buy it, I'll ditch it. If it has no ad-free version, it will probably get ditched anyway.

    End result: More screen real estate restored and no blinkin' lights to distract me.

    Android - powered by Penguins!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Free as in... Oh, what's that over there...

      I was the same way, but I've grown accustomed to game apps that "market gently" to me. Case in point, Wooga's Futurama themed Game of Drones, and Mucho Taco. Not sure if MT is on Android, but GoD is and they both do adverts very nicely. They don't force huge video ads, merely the occasional full-screen static image that is easily dismissed, and they offer in-game incentives to view the video adverts, which are also optional. I find (in-game) value to some of the perks, so I view the video ads to get some extra coins, not a big deal, and I don't feel like I'm giving away my eyeballs like I did when I used to pay US$90/month for cable TV "service." Look at how many adverts are sent during the shows that you think you've already paid for through the subscription? Surprise! You just paid to receive adverts that cannot be skipped unless you also DVR the show and can manage the skip-to-my-show shuffle. So glad I got off that roller-coaster of ripping me off monthly. Thank science for Hulu, Netflix, and Kodi!

      1. Indolent Wretch

        Re: Free as in... Oh, what's that over there...

        Whereas the polar opposite and an amazing piece of chutzpah is the free version of the official Scrabble app on iOS (and probably Android too) by a money starved no name developer called "E.A".

        In an app where you can have 20+ games on the trot easily the damn thing plays an unskippable 30 second video ad (badly) after EVERY SINGLE MOVE YOU MAKE.

        And I speak from experience when I say the advertiser in question seems to ever only have 3 ads on rotation so you can quite easily get the same 30 second ad 10 times on the bounce.

        Quite freaking extraordinary.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cost per kilometre

    I think you mean cost per mille (one thousand) there Andrew.

    1. MrDamage Silver badge

      Re: Cost per kilometre

      Please stick to El Reg standard units.

      Cost per brontosaurus, surely.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Money to be made?

    It amazes me that people actually pay for apps or notice let alone click on the adverts in free apps. Do a reasonable percentage of app developers actually make money from their apps or is it just the tiny minority that can make a living off it?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The ad-supported app

    "The ad-supported app is alive and well" .... and increasingly plugged into Android's 'notifications' facility, which is starting to annoy the hell out of me.

    I was a reluctant convert from a Blackberry OS handset, and this is one of the reasons why.

    I have very few 'free' apps - I use paid-for apps as a preference (but even these are starting to spam the notifications service), but there isn't always a paid-for version for some uses.

    Yes I know you can suppress notifications, but its mostly an all-or-nothing choice.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The ad-supported app

      In Android, find the setting app. Go to the notification section. Find App notification and click on it.

      Click on each app that you do not want notification and deselect show notification (it should be a very long list and it should take some time without another app to automatic do it for you). This procedure should be very similar to iphone.

      For other android device, it might be under installed apps. Click on the apps to find the app details. Find the option for turning off notification and click on it. (repeat for all unwanted notification)

      If for some reasons there are still notifications you did not asked for (after deselected) or the option just doesn't exist, then your android might be too old and will need to install a push notification blocker.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The ad-supported app

      > I have very few 'free' apps - I use paid-for apps as a preference (but even these are starting to spam the notifications service), but there isn't always a paid-for version for some uses.

      You may want to consider switching to free (as opposed to 'free') applications.

      Applications obtained from the F-Droid repository are FOSS *and* are necessarily stripped of advertising libraries, either because those libraries are non-FOSS or because API keys would have been excluded from the build.

      What this means is that in some cases you can find versions of your existing applications minus the advertising. You can of course donate to the developers via the usual channels, if the developer so chooses.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ad Revenue Up Discoverablity Down

    Ad revenue might be up on Android, but getting you app/game noticed on Android it really hard now without spending a lot of money. I recently published a game on Android called "Snowmangeddon" and had next to no downloads.Yet I had a dozen companies contact me asking if I would like to pay for downloads to get it on the top download lists only $0.10 a download... no thanks! Luckily it is only a hobby for me and I don't depend on making money from it.

    "Snowmangeddon" does has ads in it. I would have chosen to not have ads, but Google wants to publish my home address to on the Play Store listing for the right to charge money for it or have in-app purchases. Once again, no thanks! Apple and Microsoft don't require that for publishing paid apps.

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