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Why Android developers are losing money, and it’s not due to piracy

August 16th, 2010 General

Android Google has made fantastic strides with Android, and a ton of developers have flocked to the on the rise mobile platform. Not everything is rosy, though. One major interest among developers is that piracy levels are very high on the platform.

Google is of course not oblivious to this and recently announced plans to combat piracy with DRM methods that app developers can include in their apps. But there is one problem that is arguably much more problematic for Android developers when it comes to getting paid for their apps, and it isn’t getting nearly as much attention as we reckon it should.

The huge problem with selling Android apps

Google is talking in this area fighting piracy, but perhaps the initially thing they should focus on is really making it possible for users to buy apps. All users. Sounds rather logical, doesn’t it? So what are we talking in this area? The problem lies with Android Market.

You can only pay for apps in 13 out of the 46 or so countries where Android phones are available. For those of you who like stats, 13 in 46 works out to less than 30%. Contrast this with Apple’s App Store, which supports paid apps in 90 countries. This is a huge advantage iPhone developers currently have over Android developers.

This is, in our opinion, one of the main reasons why piracy is running rampant on the Android platform. If a large part of the world’s Android users can’t even pay for apps, is it so weird that some of them turn to piracy?

In additional words, piracy isn’t the root of the problem, the inability to pay is.

This is of course terrible news for Android app developers because:

It will result in fewer sold apps (obviously).
It may also get customers used to not paying for apps.

Let’s expand upon that second point, because it’s vital.

Fostering a culture of free

We all like free, right? But the reality is that it can be terrible news for developers if that mentality goes too far.

If Google doesn’t quickly make it possible for users in more countries to easily pay for apps, the company may make a long-term problem. Public in those countries will simply get used to pirating their apps. They will get used to all Android apps being “free.”

So what happens once these users finally have proper access to paid apps? Sure, some of them will be paying, if nothing else because it’s more convenient, but the risk is that a significant part of users will not like the thought of suddenly paying for something that so far has been available at no cost. Google will effectively have produced “pirates” out of public who may otherwise not have gone down that route.

To say that this would relentlessly hinder Android developers from making a living is an understatement.

The situation today

Paid Android apps are available in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States.

This means that huge parts of Europe (for example all Scandinavian countries) are left without paid apps, all of Asia with the exception of Japan, and Latin America. Those are some pretty large markets to leave out.

We’re based in Sweden, one of the countries currently left out. Android is becoming a pretty well loved platform here, but there is also widespread frustration among users that paid apps are not readily available. These are public who really want to pay for apps, but have to jump through hoops to do it or turn to piracy. NOT excellent for business.

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Why Android developers are losing money, and it’s not due to piracy