Media Story | App sales soar in 2012

• ·         Tablets and smartphones given as presents make Christmas Day and Boxing Day the two most lucrative days of the year for app sales
• ·         This month, industry analyst Canalys claimed that in the first 20 days of November, Apple's US App Store generated $120m (£75m) of app revenues,
• o   With 25 publishers accounting for half of that.
• ·         24 of those 25 companies make games (including the likes of Zynga, Electronic Arts and Angry Birds publisher Rovio)
• ·         Analysts suggested in August that two-thirds of Apple store apps had never been downloaded
• o   more than 400,000 unwanted apps.
• ·         Popular "freemium" games which are free to download but make money through in-app purchases of virtual currency or items.
• ·         Angry Birds has set a template that other games hope to follow – generating app store riches, followed by real world revenues from toys and merchandise.
• ·         Apps have not saved the newspaper industry just yet, but three of the 10 most lucrative iPad apps on the UK App Store in 2012 belonged to newspapers: the Times, Telegraph and Guardian.
• ·         Magazine app - UK-based Future currently grossing $1m of sales from its digital editions.
• ·         Apps have been important for the growth of online TV services such as Netflix and Hulu
• ·         In the UK, 24% of programme requests to the BBC's iPlayer now come from handheld devices.
• ·         Apple is the leading company that makes the post money from apps.
• ·         The company said in June it had paid $5bn to app-makers since its App Store launched in 2008.
• ·         Individually, most apps still fail. But collectively, they are colossally successful at building the fortunes of the App Store's owner.