The Emerging Application Ecosystems: An Introductory Analysis of the Android Ecosystem

: Sami Hyrynsalmi, Arho Suominen, Tuomas Mäkilä, Timo Knuutila

Publisher: IGI Global

: 2014

: International Journal of E-Business Research

: IJEBR

: 10

: 2

: 61

: 81

: 21

: 1548-114X

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4018/ijebr.2014040104(external)

Emerging mobile application ecosystems have had a clear effect on the

software business. Apple App Store and Google Play have gathered both existing

large software companies and new start-ups. In creating a healthy ecosystem, the

role of the software developer is significant. In practice, the ecosystems’ ability

to entice developers to create software products to the ecosystem can be argued

to be a major factor driving the competitiveness of the ecosystem. We investigate

Google Play, by gathering the data of approximately 350,000 applications from

the marketplace. With the dataset, we study some common assumptions linked to

the marketplace. The results show that the direct software sale is a practical

revenue model only for a few while offering a trial and paid version of the

application seems to improve the revenue. The impact of the number of

applications in the marketplace is questioned.