1）游戏行业博客gamesbrief最近发布数据显示，在2011年苹果App Store应用营收榜单前101名中，有59%的应用属于免费产品（游戏邦注：这里包括所有类型应用程序），而2010年11月份统计的这一比例为34%。

以下图表反映的是根据Apple’s Rewind统计的前101名营收榜单应用类型及售价情况。从中可以看出，游戏数量占比77%，远超居于第二位的导航应用（占比8%）；其中免费产品占比59%，居于其次的是售价0.69英磅的付费应用（占比14%）。

top grossing apps 2011genre(from gamesbrief)

top grossing apps 2011 price(from gamesbrief)

2）移动分析公司Mobilewalla最新数据表明，周日是开发者发布应用程序的最佳时机，但多数开发者最喜欢在周三发布应用（游戏邦注：这项调查追踪了App Store和Android Market从5月16日至9月8日的应用发布数据，在这期间，App Store共发布了9万1754款iOS应用，Android Market发布了12万2220款应用）。但需注意的是，Android开发者可以控制自己的发布日期，而iOS开发者发布日期却会受到苹果应用审核政策的影响，因此这一调查结果并不能反映准确情况。

该公司曾在本月报告称iOS、Android、黑莓和Windows Phone四大平台的应用数量已增长至98万7863款，平均每天新增2000款应用。在过去12个月中，iOS应用数量从原来的33.8万款增长至58万9148款，而Android则从11.5万款增长至31万9774款。

Mobilewalla本次调查发现，发布于周日的应用下载情况更良好，更容易跻身前240名热门应用榜单之列（这里的前240名是指在应用商店中排较靠前的应用）。42%发布于周日的iOS应用进入前240名，有11%的Android取得了同等成就。

Day of the Week(from Mobilewalla)

报告还指出，周四是最不适合在Android平台发布应用的日期，仅有7%在当天发布的Android应用进入了前240名；而iOS平台最不利的发布日期则是周五，仅有10%于当天发布的应用进入前240名。

iOS平台的应用曝光率比Android Market多四倍，苹果用户比Android用户更易检索应用。

3）智能手机市场分析师Brian S. Hall最近通过Twitter发贴指出，苹果App Store价值超过整个RIM公司，App Store目前估值为70.8亿美元，而RIM则是70.4亿美元左右。

Apple trefis price(from gigaom)

Brian S. Hall主要根据RIM在上周五收盘为13.44美元的股价，以及App Store在苹果市值中占比2%的情况而分析得出这一结果（苹果目前市值为3540亿美元，那么占比2%的App Store就是70.8亿美元）。

4）在线市场调研公司YouGov最近报告指出，40%英国用户拥有智能手机，但86%用户完全无视移动广告的存在，有79%用户表示这些广告非常令人不快。

smartphone ad(from smartphoneadvertiser.com)

该报告还发现，平板电脑使用率正在增长，有24%用户常在床上用平板电脑上网；尽管平板电脑在英国市场占有率仅4%，但YouGov预测随着数字杂志消费量的增长，平板电脑市场份额还有很大发展潜力。

5）IDC最新数据显示，第三季度全球平板电脑出货量增长23.9%，共达1810万部；苹果iPad第三季度占据61.5%的市场份额，略低于第二季度的63.3%，该季度的iPad出货量达1110万部，超过去年同期的930万部。

galaxy-tab-ipad(from digitaltrends.com)

Android目前占据32.4%的平板电脑市场份额，略低于上一季度的33.2%，但预计第四季度将增长至40.3%；惠普TouchPad占据5%市场份额，成为仅次于三星产品（占比5.6%）的第三大热门平板电脑。

6）谷歌董事长Eric Schmidt在最近媒体采访中表示，公司有意在未来6个月内推出自己的平板电脑产品。

android_tablet(from androidtabletapplications.com)

观察者称，谷歌的这项产品可能将采用新版Android操作系统，或者有可能推出一款类似于Nexus的平板电脑，贴上谷歌品牌推向市场。

7）英国分析公司Junpier Research最近报告预测，由于智能手机及地理社交网络覆盖率增长，2016年手机社交媒介用户将达13亿。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）59% of the Top Grossing Apps in the whole of 2011 were Free

Nicholas Lovell

Tweet  I think that the data points about whether free works are becoming very clear.

In 2011, across the whole Appstore, 59% of the top grossing apps (not games, but all apps) were free.

Last time I did this analysis – a snapshot in November 2010 – the figure was 34%.

The charts below show the price points and genres of the top 101 games on the AppStore, according to Apple’s Rewind feature. Cast your eye down the list to see which products *really* know how to make money on the AppStore.（source:gamesbrief）

2）Sunday Is The Best Day To Launch Your Mobile App

Sarah Perez

According to new research from mobile analytics service Mobilewalla, Sunday is the best day to release a mobile app, but Wednesday is the most popular day among developers. The company studied the apps released in the iTunes App Store and Android Market over a 17-week period between May 16th and September 8th, 2011, to determine its findings. During this time, there were 91,754 iOS apps released into the iTunes App Store and 122,220 apps released into the Android Market.

Yes, that’s a lot of apps! The company reported earlier in December that the app count rose to 987,863 across all four platforms (iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone) and is now growing at an average of 2,000 apps per day. In the last 12 months, iOS apps grew from 338,000 to 589,148. Android apps grew from 115,000 to 319,774.

During the 119 days of the study, Mobilewalla sorted apps by the day of the week they were released. However, it should be noted that on Android, developers control the release date, while iOS apps’ release dates are affected by the iTunes review cycle. So it may not be fair to proclaim Wednesday as developer’s “favorite” day universally, given that they’re not always in control of the release timeframe.

Even if Sunday was not always the developers’ chosen launch day, Mobilewalla found that apps released then statistically performed the best. That is, they made it into the list of the top 240 mobile applications. In this case, Mobilewalls is defining the “top 240″ apps as those that achieve the highest ranking in their respective stores. 42% of the iOS apps released on a Sunday made it into the top 240, while 11% of Android apps did the same.

Meanwhile, Thursdays were the worst day to release apps on Android, as only 7% of apps reached the top 240 then. On iOS, Fridays were the worst, as only 10% of apps reached the top 240.

Although unrelated to trends regarding the best and worst days of the week to launch, the company stumbled upon a relatively sad finding during its research: an app on Apple’s platform is four times more likely to be discovered than an app on the Android Market. That speaks to the challenges Google still has to overcome in terms of its ability to better showcase the best new apps within its app store, perhaps.

Explains Anindya  Datta,  Ph.D., founder  and  chairman  of  Mobilewalla, “Apple users discover apps more conveniently than Android users. And while it is impossible to identify exact causes for this pattern, users may find it easier to browse items in the relatively low number of apps launched over the weekend.”（source:techcrunch）

3）Apple’s App Store alone worth more than RIM

By Darrell Etherington

Apple’s App Store alone is worth more than all of Research In Motion, the maker of BlackBerry devices. That’s according to a bit of quick-thinking analysis by writer and smartphone market analyst Brian S. Hall (via Twitter), who noted on his blog that at its share price Monday morning, RIM is worth roughly $7.04 billion, while the App Store is probably worth about $7.08 billion.

Trefis analysis of Apple’s value broken down by category

Hall’s analysis is based on RIM’s stock price of $13.44, its closing price as of Friday on the NYSE, and analysis by Trefis that says Apple’s App Store is responsible for about 2 percent of Apple’s market cap. Taking Apple’s current market cap of $354 billion and doing the math, Hall arrived at the $7.08 billion number.

Apps are the lifeblood of mobile ecosystems, as is becoming apparent by the domination of the smartphone market by iOS and Android devices, which have the strongest software libraries by far of any mobile platform. There is no better way to encapsulate what being behind in the app race means for a mobile company than Hall’s snapshot comparison of one company near its lowest point, with a single subcategory of another in its prime.（source:gigaom）

4）86 per cent of smartphone users ignore mobile ads

by Zen Terrelonge

That, and more found in YouGov’s 2012 consumer tech predictions.

The online market researcher says 40 per cent of Britons own smartphones, which is set to rise to 68 per cent with the next device upgrade cycle.

Despite this large share of the mobile space, marketers are in danger of failing with their campaigns, according to the report. More than three quarters ignore mobile advertising completely and 79 per cent describe the method as irritating.

Worrying figures, which show a significant need for ad firms to up their game in order to turn around the opinion.

The report says that indoor smartphone use for interaction with TVs and heating systems will grow, in addition to service use for location-based marketing and QR codes.

Further results show that tablet popularity is on the rise too, with 24 per cent surfing the web in bed with their device.

Russell Feldman, associate director of technology at YouGov, said: “The decline of print media sales will only accelerate during 2012. Tablets and apps will increase the digital cannibalisation of paper copies as they erode more of those previously inaccessible locations to digital devices; for example, nearly one quarter of tablet users access the internet whilst in bed.”

Although tablet adoption in the UK is only at four per cent , YouGov predicts the number will grow as a result of digital magazine consumption and that newspapers and publishers will concentrate more on tablet platforms.（source:mobile-ent）

5）Media Tablet Shipments Miss Third Quarter Targets, But New Entrants and Holiday Demand Will Spark Fourth Quarter Growth, According to IDC

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., December 15, 2011 – Worldwide media tablet shipments into sales channels rose by 23.9% on a sequential basis in the third calendar quarter of 2011 (3Q11) to 18.1 million units, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Media Tablet and eReader Tracker. That represents an increase of 264.5% from the same quarter last year, but 5.8% below the original forecast of 19.2 million units. Despite these slightly lower-than-expected shipments in 3Q11, IDC sees strong demand in 4Q11 and has increased its worldwide shipment forecast for 2011 to 63.3 million units, up from a previous projection of 62.5 million units.

Apple continued to drive worldwide media tablet shipments in 3Q11. The company shipped 11.1 million units in 3Q11, up from 9.3 million units in 2Q11. That represents a 61.5% worldwide market share (down from 63.3% in 2Q11). HP entered and left the market in 3Q11 with its TouchPad product. The company shipped 903,354 units to grab a 5% share of the worldwide market, number three behind Samsung’s 5.6% market share. After IDC updated its taxonomy to move LCD-based devices such as Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color into the media tablet category, Barnes & Noble shipped 805,458 units to achieve the number four spot with a 4.5% market share. ASUS rounded out the top five with a 4% share.

After ceding share in 3Q11 (down to 32.4% from 33.2% the previous quarter), IDC expects Android to make dramatic share gains in 4Q11 growing to 40.3%. That increase is due mostly to the entrance of Amazon’s Kindle Fire, and to a lesser extent the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet, into the market. The share increase comes at the expense of Blackberry (slipping from 1.1% to 0.7%), iOS (slipping from 61.5% to 59.0%), and webOS (slipping from 5% to 0%). Despite HP’s announcement last week that it would contribute webOS to the Open Source community, IDC does not believe the operating system will reappear in the media tablet market in any meaningful way going forward.

“Amazon and Barnes & Noble are shaking up the media tablet market, and their success helps prove that there is an appetite for media tablets beyond Apple’s iPad,” said Tom Mainelli, research director, Mobile Connected Devices. “That said, I fully expect Apple to have its best-ever quarter in 4Q11, and in 2012 I think we’ll see Apple’s product begin to gain more traction outside of the consumer market, specifically with enterprise and education markets.” （source:idc）

6）Google is making its own tablet, and in 6 months you can buy it

Jolie O’Dell

Google chairman Eric Schmidt announced in an interview today that the company was looking to launch its own tablet within the next six months.

In a conversation with Italian publication Carriere Della Sera, Schmidt spoke briefly about the iPad and revealed, “In the next six months, we plan to market a tablet of the highest quality.”

While Apple has vigorously prosecuted manufacturers such as Samsung for its allegedy copycat tablet design — and while Steve Jobs spoke strongly before his death about how he considered Android a work of theft — Schmidt chalked it all up to business and competition.

“In mobile communications, the smartphone market, you will see brutal competition between Apple and Google Android. It is capitalism,” he said.

We’re waiting for official confirmation from Google about the meaning of Schmidt’s words. Google might be rolling out a new type of tablet with a manufacturer partner as part of its familiar lead-device strategy for new Android operating systems. Or, the company might actually be bringing a Nexus-like tablet to market itself under the Google brand name.

One thing is certain, however: Whatever product Schmidt is talking about will be running Android 4.0, a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich and will likely show off the most impressive features of that operating system. Currently, few Ice Cream Sandwich tablets are available, even for pre-order.

For now, Android tablets in general make up an exciting but still small portion of the tablet market, where they face stiff competition from the likes of Apple’s iPad. As of August 2011, Android tablets had wrested 20 percent of the tablet market share away from Apple.（source:venturebeat）

7）Mobile social media users to hit 1.3bn in 2016

by Zen Terrelonge

Up from 650m this year.

UK-based analyst Juniper Research says the rise of mobile social media users will be powered by the continued growth of those adopting smartphones and geosocial network use.

The 1.3 billion mobile social network users expected for 2016 is more than all of the users across every platform today, according to the report.

The integration of location-based tech into social media has proven to be popular, as platforms like Foursquare occupy the whereabouts of more than 15 million users.

The report says the union of social, local and mobile tech has bloomed because people don’t just want to know what their friends are doing, but also where and what other activities are in the area.（source:mobile-ent）