美国科技博客GigaOm上周公布的调查报告显示，苹果App Store中排名靠前的产品约三分之一是采用免费模式的应用。

而手机市场分析公司Flurry的数据则表明，对开发商而言，免费应用是绝好的创收工具。今年1月，Flurry所追踪的免费模式游戏用户的每年平均消费额是9美元，今年6月，这一数据上升到了14.66美元。而在此之前，这类用户每年平均消费额仅99美分至1.99美元左右。

freemium apps makes a good bit of money

免费下载但付费购买虚拟商品的模式，是免费游戏的重要创收方式。苹果于去年秋季开始支持iPhone、iPod Touch和iPad平台的应用内置付费功能，使开发商得以向用户推出免费下载的应用，鼓励用户在游戏中购买道具、武器等虚拟商品，这种操作更容易将非付费用户转化为付费玩家。

与Facebook针对社交游戏开发商的营收操作一样，苹果公司也从这些游戏内置交易中抽成30%。

据统计，苹果App Store目前的免费和付费应用已超过30万款，每天新增产品数量在1000款左右；Android应用商店目前约11.3万款应用。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

About a third of the top grossing apps in the Apple App Store are now making their money through the sale of virtual goods within the application after being free to download, according to research done by tech blog GigaOm.

Freemium applications are making a good bit of money. In January, mobile analytics firm Flurry said that the freemium games it tracked generated revenues of $9 per user per year, on average. In June, that number had risen to $14.66 per user per year. Previously, these games were generating around 99 cents to $1.99 per user per year. 34 of the top 100 apps are free, but make their money through in-app purchases of mostly virtual currencies as well as other premium features, according to GigaOm’s report.

Apple takes a 30 percent cut of all purchases made within applications. That’s the same amount that Facebook, another large host of social games (including Zynga’s Farmville), charges its game partners.

Apple’s App Store now has around 300,000 apps for sale and for free download. And the App Store is growing by around 1,000 apps every day. The Android marketplace, which has applications for phones running on Google’s Android operating system, only has around 113,000 applications according to some metrics.（source:venturebeat）